


I Will Be the One Who Comes to Rescue You

by morningdew



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon compliant as of the end of 5A, Eventual Stydia, F/M, Kira is back and is fine because I refuse to accept otherwise, Stydia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-03 09:52:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5286170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morningdew/pseuds/morningdew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my take on how 5B will unfold. It starts out slow, in the perspective of Stiles as he copes with the aftermath of his father's near-death experience, his fallout with Scott, and eventually, what happened to Lydia. There isn't much Stydia in the first two chapters, just some (platonic) Sciles angst because I'm heartbroken over what happened in 5A, but the Stydia is coming! I have a lot of feelings about Stiles, so the first few chapters are just me sorting through how much of a mess he is right now. After that is when we get to the good stuff! When he actually gets to break her out of that hell hole known as Eichen House and the aftermath of that. So I hope you can bear with me until we get to the eventual Stydia because afterall, that is what inspired this! I switch POVs towards the middle, so you can see things from Lydia's perspective, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Blood on My Hands Scares Me to Death

**Author's Note:**

> My timeline is probably very wrong just because I don't know how much time passes between any of the events, so it's all speculation.

Ever since he discovered the supernatural, Stiles has struggled with powerlessness. He is the only human in the pack, the only one without any powers to help protect his loved ones. But he has never felt as helpless as he feels in this moment, with his father’s life hanging by a thread.

A voice in his head screams _It’s your fault. This is all your fucking fault. You’ve been putting his life in danger ever since you dragged him into this godforsaken world of the supernatural. How would you ever live with yourself if you lost him, too?_

There is dried blood on his hands from when he brought his father to the hospital. It’s too much, too much red. He scratches at it with his fingers, wishing he could tear off his skin because _God, this is all his fault._

Soon, he has clawed at his hands so much that he has drawn his own blood and for some reason, he’s satisfied that he can no longer tell whose blood is whose. He’s been pacing this whole time, but his usually spastic limbs seem to have lost the ability to function correctly, so he resigns to sitting in the hospital chair with his head in his hands. He realizes that he should probably just go wash his hands, to cleanse them of the blood that he feels he’ll never be able to get rid of, (after all, he is a murderer), but he feels paralyzed. He hasn’t heard any news for over an hour. He is slowly losing what’s left of his sanity as he contemplates what would have happened if he was a second late.

Stiles has lost the battle of attempting to keep his tears at bay by this point, he can’t hold them back anymore. And why does it matter, anyway? He’s alone right now; alone, weak, and absolutely useless to his dying father. _No, he’s not dying. His dad is going to be fine. He has to be. Because Stiles can’t even fathom what would happen to him if he’s not._

When Scott walks in, worry etched into his features, Stiles doesn’t even think before he reacts. For someone whose motor functions seemed to have stopped working just a few minutes ago, he gets up remarkably fast. He makes a beeline for him and screams “Where were you, Scott?!,” throwing him against the wall and onto the ground in the process.

It doesn’t register immediately that he shouldn’t be able to slam an alpha werewolf against the wall as he just did, he doesn’t understand why Scott isn’t fighting back. There’s so much pent up anger inside of him; he had to release it somehow. And the guilt. Oh, the guilt. Stiles can feel it crawling up his throat and threatening to fucking suffocate him.

He wishes Scott would fight back, wishes he would hurt him so he could feel _something_ , _anything_  other than this anger and guilt. But the fight in Stiles is gone as quickly as it came, the spark of emotion that caused him to attack Scott has disappeared. He doesn’t even have the energy to be angry; he feels drained, empty. He wishes Donovan had killed him. He wishes he didn’t have to see the day where his best friend, his _brother,_ stepped back from him in fear, looking at him like he was a monster, like he was someone he couldn’t even recognize. He wishes he wasn’t alive to see his father lying in a pool of his own blood, barely hanging onto life. Because it is his fault. Theo went after his father _because of him_ and that knowledge leaves him incapable of breathing correctly, with a panic attack tickling his insides, threatening to consume him.

Stiles backs up against the wall and sinks to his knees, retreating behind his hands once again as a loud and vicious sob escapes from his throat.

Scott just stares at him in disbelief, unsure of what to do or say, warring emotions consuming him. They had a terrible fight where Stiles basically admitted to brutally murdering Donovan, but the Sheriff is on the verge of death right now. What is he supposed to do? Scott doesn’t even fully understand what happened, which is understandable, being as he was literally _dead_ for a while. All he knows is that his mother got a call from the hospital alerting her that the Sheriff was brought in and that he’s in very critical condition.

As strained as their relationship is right now, he couldn’t find it in him to retaliate, to fight back when Stiles lunged for him, especially knowing the state he’s probably in. Scott looks at Stiles; he looks so small, so broken, that it’s hard to imagine him doing what Theo described. _But after what Theo just did to him, can he even believe anything that he says? But Stiles admitted it, didn’t he?_

He realizes that Stiles’ outburst insinuates that he blames him for not protecting his father, that he expected him to. But Stiles doesn’t know what happened with Theo and Liam; all he knows is that his father almost died and he needs _someone_ to blame for that. Scott suspects that Stiles blames himself, that the guilt is probably eating away at him right now, but taking it out on Scott was easier than letting it consume him.

He sinks down next to Stiles, leaving some space between them, as they wait for Melissa to come with an update on the Sheriff’s condition.

They sit in silence for what feels like an eternity, Stiles’ silent sobs wracking his body and Scott contemplating what to say.

After a while, Stiles says, “It was Theo. He did it.” He says it so softly, his voice still full with the weight of his misery, that he’s not sure Scott heard him.

But with his werewolf hearing, of course he did.

“Theo tried to kill the Sheriff? Why?” Scott notices that Stiles visibly winces at the word “kill” and wishes he had worded it differently.

“He did it to hurt me. Because I wouldn’t help him take your pack.” _Scott notices how he says “ **your** pack” instead of “ **our** pack” and it hurts him to realize that Stiles thinks that he kicked him out of the pack after their fight. Did he? He doesn’t remember saying that explicitly, but he was so harsh that it might have come across that way._

Stiles can’t look him in the eye, so he sits there and stares at his hands, at the red, red, red, that seems to taunt him. Theo’s words echo in his head, _The nogitsune’s gone, but you still have more blood on your hands than any of us._

“He killed me,” Scott says softly, with disbelief in his voice because it still hasn’t really registered that he was actually _dead_.

This makes Stiles look up, forces him to finally face Scott. “What? What do you mean he killed you, Scott?”

The surprise and anger in Stiles' voice stirs something in Scott, showing him that no matter what, Stiles will always be so fiercely protective of him because he cares so much. The voice in his head sneers, _Then how could you ever have doubted him?_

“It’s a long story. He got in Liam’s head, made him come after me, thinking that I was purposely letting Hayden die by not giving her the bite. Mason anchored him at the end, got through to him, but then, Theo came and finished me off. He needed me out of the way, to take the pack, like you said. I was dead for about fifteen minutes according to Mason, but my mom revived me somehow.”

Stiles stares at him, unsure of what to say, so he settles for, “I knew he was evil.”

This makes Scott smile because _there’s his Stiles, there’s his best friend that he loves like a brother. How could he have forgotten?_

“So he wasn’t bluffing, then. When he said I couldn’t save you both.”

“What do you mean?”

“Theo told me that he would tell me where he was keeping my dad if I didn’t help you, said that I couldn’t save both my best friend and my dad. But I didn’t know that he actually hurt both of you. I didn’t know…” Stiles’ voice breaks at the end.

“It’s okay, Stiles. I never imagined that he would turn out like that. Like you said, once again, you were right about him. I’m starting to think we should just always believe you and never doubt you.”

Stiles winces at this declaration, remembering their fight, remembering that Scott didn’t believe him, that he thinks he’s a monster, a murderer. He doesn’t get to respond because he sees Melissa approaching and he’s grateful because he’s not stable enough to continue this conversation.

Melissa looks at them, sitting with so much space between them and it breaks her heart because she knows that’s symbolic of how their relationship is right now. Scott didn’t tell her what happened between him and Stiles, just that they got into a serious fight. But right now, what matters most is the Sheriff and that he’s alive. She stops when she’s standing right in front of them and leans down so that she’s eye-level with Stiles.

“Hey, Stiles. He lost a lot of blood, but he’s stable, for now. You got him here just in time.” She tries to muster up her most reassuring smile because _God, this boy has been through too much throughout his life. He doesn’t deserve all of this._

Stiles perks up a little at this, but the misery is still etched all over his face.

“Can I see him?”

“Not yet, he hasn’t completely passed the level of danger yet. He’s currently in a coma. We don’t think it’ll last long, though.”

Stiles sighs, both in relief and worry at the same time. He drags his hands over his face, wiping at his bloodshot eyes.

“Thank you, Melissa. Will you let me know when I can see him?”

“Of course, honey.” She looks worriedly down at his bloodied hands. “Why don’t you go to the bathroom and clean up a little?”

“Yeah, I guess I will.” Melissa lends him her hand and helps him to stand up. She can’t stop herself from hugging him once he’s up because she has seen Stiles in states like this way too often and it breaks her heart. Stiles returns the hug, thanking her once more “for everything.”

Scott starts to get up, “Do you need me to-”

“I’m fine,” Stiles says curtly.

It seems as though their brief ceasefire is over and they’re back at odds, again. Scott knows they’ll have to talk about it eventually, but it just isn’t the time. They’re both still angry, upset, and confused, so they each need time to themselves.

Melissa and Scott watch him walk away, towards the bathroom, and she turns to her son, still trembling with the shock that he was dead a few hours ago. She grasps onto him and he probably understands what she’s thinking because he tries to smile and tells her, “I’m fine, mom.” She hugs him, anyway, and it takes a while for him to coax her into letting go so she can get back to work.

She releases him and tells him, with tears in her eyes, “I hate what this world has done to you two.”

She walks away and Scott whispers, “Me too, mom, me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you think! The title of the chapter is from Jaymes Young's song "I'll Be Good," which I think is such a Stiles song.


	2. I Wish You Were Here

Four days pass and the Sheriff is still in a coma. Stiles isn’t sure what to do with himself, he has barely left the hospital since he brought his father in. He’s allowed to visit him now, though, so that has calmed him down a little. He has barely moved, seemingly lifeless, the guilt eating away at him as he looks at his father’s face, dead to the world in his coma.

Melissa repeatedly had to drag Stiles into her car and drive him home so he could shower, eat something, and sleep. But Stiles couldn’t sleep in the house knowing his dad is in the state he’s in. The house felt dark, empty, lonely, and uninviting without his father there, so he opted to taking naps in the chair next to his hospital bed. There was no relief in sleep, though; he was plagued by a recurring nightmare where Theo kills his father and he’s standing behind a glass wall, incapable of helping, watching him take his last breaths as Stiles screams for him.

Malia visits often and he’s touched by the sentiment, but he mostly stays silent, unable to do anything but worry. Kira came back and he’s actually really happy to see her when she comes to visit the few times that she does, but all he can do is give her a hug and thank her for coming.

Scott tries to be subtle about his visits, coming in when Stiles isn’t in the room or asking for updates from Melissa, but Stiles sees him every time. He knows that Scott has been coming in at night, when he thinks Stiles is asleep, to watch over the Sheriff. It makes him feel guilty because he made Scott feel like he failed him when Theo attacked his father. He feels even worse when he remembers that Scott was literally _dead_ and yet, here he was, blaming him for not being there to protect his father, as if it's his obligation. 

Stiles knows he should say something, apologize for the way he acted, but he doesn’t have the energy to talk to Scott because he knows it’s inevitable that the Donovan conversation will come up. He was already in a fragile state emotionally and mentally, so he doesn’t think he can handle hearing Scott’s accusations and disappointment.

Melissa tells Stiles that Scott hasn’t been able to find Theo anywhere, though. Liam also seems to have distanced himself, no doubt ashamed of what happened with Scott.

A week passes and nothing changes; his dad is still in a coma, the same people visit, Theo is still no where to be found. Something that does bother Stiles, though, is that Lydia hasn’t come to visit at all, which seems quite uncharacteristic of her. He tried calling her a few times, but she hasn't answered. He’s sitting in the chair, wondering if she doesn’t care enough to come see how he’s coping, when he feels his father’s hand move beneath his own. It’s so sudden that it breaks him out of his thoughts and Stiles starts to think he imagined it, assuming that the lack of sleep is finally catching up to him, when he sees his father’s eyes open.

“Dad! You’re awake!” He screams as he tries to hug him without causing him any pain.

“Stiles, you’re so loud. And ow! Be careful!”

“I’m so sorry, I just can’t believe you’re awake! I have to go get Melissa, I’ll be right back!” His limbs have regained their spasticity and he trips over the chair when he’s getting up too quickly.

He’s running out of the room so fast that he bumps into Scott on his way out.

“Ugh - sorry - Oh, it’s you.”

“Yeah, we need to talk, Stiles. I was just looking for you.” Kira is with him and she gives Stiles a small smile, but it looks forced.

_He wants to talk? Fuck. I really do not need this right now. We haven’t actually talked, like, had an actual conversation, since the day I brought my dad to the hospital a week ago. I can’t do this right now._

“I think it can wait. My dad just woke up!” He can’t help the smile that finds its way onto his face, forgetting that him and Scott aren’t on the best terms.

Scott can’t help but smile in return because he’s genuinely happy for him. If things weren’t so strained, he would have been hugging him, like Kira is doing right now.

“Yeah, I guess it can wait…” but the way in which he says it makes it seem like it can’t.

Stiles sees the worry that’s on Scott’s face mirrored on Kira’s and it can only mean one thing: something happened. Something very bad.

“...I guess it can’t wait. I just have to let Melissa know that my dad’s awake and talk to him for a while, make sure he’s okay, and then I’ll meet you guys at your place, okay?”

Scott nods. “We’ll go say hello to your dad, while you find my mom. ”

Scott calls to him as he walks away, “And Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“Call Malia. I haven’t been able to get a hold of Liam, but I don’t think he wants to talk to me right now. But we need the rest of the pack there.”

 _A pack meeting? This must be really serious._ The happiness Stiles felt when he saw his dad open his eyes is slowly dissipating as the anxiety builds up. _What else could possibly have happened?_

“Okay, I’ll call her. I’ll see you guys in a bit!” Stiles calls back.

Only then does it register that there’s one more member of the pack that Scott didn’t mention. Lydia.


	3. Where's Lydia?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles finds out what Scott wants to talk about: Lydia is missing.

Melissa enters the room with Stiles in her wake, a bright smile on her face, genuinely happy to see that the Sheriff is okay. She gives him a gentle hug and he smiles at her, thanking her for all that she’s done. She scoffs, says that they’re practically family, and excuses herself to go get him some pain medication.

Stiles approaches his father’s bed, tears glistening in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry, dad. This should have never happened to you, it’s my fault.”

“Don’t be stupid, Stiles. None of this is your fault. I signed up for this kind of life when I decided to become the Sheriff, I risk myself everyday; the supernatural just adds some extra, more gruesome risks. And that is not your fault. It’s not your fault Scott was bitten that day years ago, just like it’s not your fault that Theo did this to me. You have to stop blaming yourself for everything that happens around you, son."

He pauses and gives Stiles a worried look as he says, "But we do need to talk about why Theo was covering for you about the library card.”

The Sheriff looks so tired, like that speech just drained him of all the energy in his body, so Stiles decides that he needs to let him rest.

“Thank you, dad. I love you so much. I’ve been a wreck thinking that I was going to lose you…I- I can’t lose you like I lost mom. I just can’t. And I know, I promise we’ll talk when you get better. I can’t promise that you’ll like what you hear, but we’ll talk. No more secrets.”

“Good. I’m tired of you keeping things from me. And you won’t lose me if I have a say in it, kid. I love you, too. Melissa said you have to go to an important pack meeting, so go.”

Stiles is openly crying now and he moves forward to hug his father as tight as he can without hurting him.

“Okay, dad. I’ll go see what this meeting is about. I’ll come around after.”

Melissa comes back and tells Stiles that she’s going to give the Sheriff some medication to help him rest. She does so, adjusts the blankets on him, and walks out of the room with Stiles.

“Stiles, I’ll be right here with him as much as I can. Go to the pack meeting, it’s important.” She’s worrying her lip, which is troubling.

“What’s wrong, Melissa? Did Scott tell you what this is about?”

“Yeah, he did, honey, and you’re not going to like it. He's not sure of anything yet, so it might not be anything severe, but he's worried."

_Stiles is beyond worried, now. What could possibly have happened that has Melissa reacting this way? He has gathered that it has something to do with Lydia, since Scott didn’t mention her at all, but what could it be? He hasn’t reached the point where he’s starting to worry about her well being just because she didn’t come visit his dad, but Melissa’s words are really raising some red flags and Stiles is starting to panic._

He hugs her, nods, and starts walking away.

He walks out of the hospital and calls a cab (because his jeep, like everything else in his life lately, fell apart, and he has to rely on other forms of transportation, now).

After that, he calls Malia and tells her to meet him at Scott’s house. Stiles tries to calm his anxiety throughout the short ride to Scott’s house to no avail. He pays the cab driver his due, walks up to the house, and knocks.

Kira opens the door, smiles at him, and asks about his dad. He reassures her and walks into the living room where Scott and Malia are currently sitting.

Scott clears his throat, “I’m glad you could make it. I know it’s inconsiderate to drag you here when your dad literally just woke up, but this is urgent.”

If he wasn’t so panicked, Stiles would laugh at how formal Scott is speaking to him, how awkward all their interactions have been lately.

“What happened?”

“We don’t know where Lydia is.”

Kira can’t look at Stiles, she’s staring at the floor and he can see tears in her eyes. Even Malia is avoiding his eyes, not knowing what to say. Only Scott has the strength to look at him.

“What do you mean you don’t know where Lydia is…?”

“We...we haven’t had any information about her whereabouts since Theo killed me and attacked your dad.” Kira visibly winces at the mention of Scott’s death and Stiles can see Scott reaching for her hand in comfort.

“So you think that bastard did something to her, too?!?” Stiles is clenching his fists, he feels dangerously close to blacking out because _this cannot be fucking happening, not when his dad just woke up!_

Malia’s the one to respond, “We’re not sure.”

“Have you tried calling her mom?”

Malia rolls her eyes at this, “Of course we tried calling her mom, Stiles. We may not all be as smart as you and Lydia, but we’re not idiots.”

Stiles ignores her jab, “And? What did she say?”

Kira answers, “She, um, she hasn’t been answering our phone calls.”

“Well, fuck.This is just great. We can’t get a hold of Lydia or Mrs. Martin!”

Scott interjects, “Let’s try calling her again.”

Stiles pulls out his phone and says, “I’ll do it.”

He calls and God bless whatever force made her answer him.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mrs. Martin. It’s Stiles.”

“Oh, hello, Stiles. I heard about your father, how is he doing?”

“He’s okay, thank you for asking. Is Lydia there?”

Natalie seems distracted when she answers, “That’s good, glad to hear it. And no, no she’s not here.”

“Then where is she?”

“She’s out.”

“Out where, Mrs. Martin?” at this point, Stiles is clenching his teeth because she is obviously deflecting and the anger is building up.

“It’s not really your business where my daughter goes, Stiles.”

 _Ouch._ “Well, then. It is my business when all of her friends tell me that they haven’t been able to get a hold of her for over a week. We’re worried about her.”

“She’s fine.”

“Yeah? I’d like to hear her tell me that for herself, if you don’t mind.”

“Actually, I do mind. Have a nice day, Stiles. I’m glad your father is okay,” and she hangs up.

Stiles throws his phone on the ground, absolutely livid and brimming with worry. He starts pacing around the living room, clenching and unclenching his fists in the process.

The others are staring at him, waiting to see what happened.

“Her mom won’t tell me where she is. We have to go to her house. Now.”

Scott, Malia, and Kira exchange looks and nod at him.

No one tries to talk to Stiles on their way to the Martin household and he’s grateful because he would probably say things that he would later regret.

Stiles’ initial thought was that this had something to do with Parrish because Lydia has been spending a lot of time around him. He was worried that Parrish hurt her in some way because Lydia was too stubborn to listen to his advice about staying away from him. _But why would her mother be hiding that from him? This goes much farther than Jordan Parrish. Something is very, very wrong._

When they get there, Scott turns to Stiles and says to him, “Stiles, can you please let me do the talking? I know how upset you are, we’re all worried, but you getting angry at Mrs. Martin won’t help anything.”

Stiles wants to protest, but he just nods. He just wants to see Lydia, to make sure she’s okay.

The four of them reach the door and knock. Natalie contemplates not answering the door when she sees that it’s them, but she knew this would happen sooner or later. _Why does her daughter have to have such stubborn friends?_

She opens the door with a sigh and let’s them in. Scott asks to see Lydia and Mrs. Martin tells him she’s not there, but Scott persists and eventually, she breaks. Natalie starts crying and Stiles is shocked to say the least, he’s never seen this woman cry over anything.

“She’s not here…” she mumbles in between sobs.

Stiles sits next to her and pats her on the shoulder, his anxiety reaching a new high.   
“Then where is she, Mrs. Martin?” he asks, with the gentlest voice he can muster.

“I-I didn’t want to have to take her there, but I had no choice. I didn’t know what to do....she was so..so...I don’t even know...she wouldn’t even talk. I had to take her, there was no where else to take her. I didn’t want anyone to find out.”

By this point, Stiles is ready to start ripping his hair out. _What the fuck is going on?_

“Where did you take her, Mrs. Martin?” his voice cracks because for some reason, he is terrified to hear her response.

She is able to croak out “E-Eichen House” before she loses it and her sobs start wracking her entire body.

Malia looks stony at the mention of the horrid place.

Scott looks like he’s just fought 100 battles and managed to survive.

Kira, remembering her only experience in that place where she basically electrocuted Scott, starts shivering. But she takes Stiles’ place next to Natalie because she realizes that he is incapable of comforting anyone right now. The look on his face is one of utter heartbreak, of hopelessness, of anger, of defeat.

Stiles feels like he can’t breathe, he feels like he’s about to have a panic attack, and he probably will in a few moments. He manages to whisper “How could you take her there? How could you?” to Natalie before he storms out of the house.


	4. You Understand Now Why They Lost Their Minds and Fought the Wars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Scott react to discovering that Natalie took Lydia to Eichen House.

After a few moments of composing himself, Scott leaves Kira and Malia to comfort Mrs. Martin and follows Stiles out the door. Although he’s sure the war is brewing inside of him, he’s glad Stiles reacted the way he did rather than screaming at Natalie like he expected he would.

Stiles is visibly shaking, tears threatening to spill and drown him in them.

_His father barely survived a near-death experience and now Lydia is in fucking Eichen House. Stiles was never really a believer in fate, but he’s reached the point where he’s pretty sure that he is fated to be miserable and that the goddamn universe is out to get him._

“She doesn’t know, Stiles. Mrs. Martin doesn’t know what that place is like, what the people there are capable of.”

Stiles turns around to face him, his whole body shaking. "Yes, she does, Scott! Lydia’s grandmother got admitted there, remember? She was a banshee, too, and that bastard Brunski killed her! And he almost killed Lydia and I when we were there!”

“But Brunski is dead, Stiles. Maybe it’s not so bad now that he’s no longer there. All the orderlies can’t be as sick as he was, maybe they’re actually trying to help her.” Scott seems to be trying to convince himself more than he is Stiles; the worry is very evident on his face.

“Are you forgetting our last visit to that hell hole? When we went to visit Valack? You know, the guy who drilled a hole into his fucking head and now has three eyes? And how he blackmailed Lydia into screaming for him? What the fuck was that about? And remember how the Dread Doctors were there? How you and Kira almost didn’t make it out? And let me not even mention _my_ lovely experiences there. Not many cheery memories that are making me optimistic about her chances of being safe and well!”

Scott winces at his tone and Stiles notices, remembering how he stepped back from him in fear in the rain on that terrible day.

 _Does he think he's going to lunge for him again?_ He never really apologized for what he did in the hospital, he was just **so**  angry. He knows that doesn't justify attacking him like he did, but he just needed some outlet for his emotions, violent as it may have been. But he can't even think straight enough to muster up an apology; there's only one thought in his head right now: _Lydia. Lydia. Lydia. Lydia._

“We have to go. Now.”

“What? Stiles, we can’t. I know how upset and worried you are, we all are, but we need a plan. We have to talk to Mrs. Martin, we need to find out why exactly she took Lydia to Eichen. We can’t just go charging in without knowing what we’re up against!”

“We don’t know what they’re doing to her, Scott! They could be torturing her!” Stiles drags his hands over his face and Scott can see that they’re trembling.

Stiles takes a deep breath that sounds like a mangled sob and looks up at him. “You don’t understand, Scott. Lydia - This is Lydia.”

His voice trembles when he says her name, like it’s breaking him to say it. He used to say her name like a prayer and now it’s like poison, threatening to destroy him with her so far out of his reach.

_He **really**  wants to just fucking disappear. Everything around him is going to shit and he feels absolutely helpless. His dad is still in the hospital and who knows if he’s truly gotten passed the worst, Scott acts like he’s a ticking time bomb when he’s around him, and now Lydia is in Eichen House at the clutches of who knows who doing who knows what to her._

**Scott's POV**

Scott gives Stiles a knowing look and takes a cautious step towards him.

_Does he really think he doesn’t know? Regardless of what happened between them, Scott knows Stiles more than he knows himself. He knows that the knowledge of where Lydia is is tearing him up, that it’s destroying him. What was it he once told her? “If you die, I’ll literally go out of my freaking mind.” Scott remembers Stiles recalling this to him the next day, his hands covering his face in embarrassment. “God, Scott. I can’t believe I said something so stupid to her. She barely even knows me and I told her I would go out of my mind if she died. She must think I’m a stalkerish psychopath.” And this was before Stiles even really knew Lydia._

_It terrifies Scott to even fathom what would become of Stiles if something were to happen to her, now. He got a glimpse of it a short while ago when Tracy attacked Lydia at the police station. Stiles was lost to the world at the sight of her bleeding out on the ground; Scott has never seen anything like it. It was like he was paralyzed, the entire world around him disappeared, and all that was left was the vision of her and the red that surrounded her. He kept calling his name, he needed his help to find Malia and Tracy, but Stiles was frozen in his spot; he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but stare at her with tears in his eyes. Stiles beat himself up over it later for being too shocked to help her, for allowing someone like Theo to do so instead, but Scott knows it was beyond his power. Scott is quite sure that Stiles was on the verge of a panic attack before Lydia broke through to him when she smiled through the pain and told him to go. The hesitation on his face was evident, he didn’t want to leave her, but there was nothing he could do. That’s when Scott realized what Lydia meant to Stiles. Of course, he knew that he never really got over her, but in that moment, he saw how far it’s come from the unrequited crush on the girl he put on a pedestal. It's pure, unadulterated, unconditional love, now._

_If something were to happen to Lydia, Scott would be losing one of his closest friends, the girl who Allison loved like a sister, the girl he promised her he would protect with his life when he visited her grave for the first time. But Stiles? Stiles’ entire world would fall to pieces if Lydia Martin was to die. And although they aren’t on the best terms right now, even if they’re never the same again, if Scott Mccall has anything to say about it, Stiles won’t lose Lydia like he lost Allison._

_He’s almost positive that Stiles wouldn’t be able to open his heart again, like he did with Kira. Stiles’ heart has only ever beat for Lydia, which Malia is slowly discovering, and he wishes it didn’t have to be this way, but he can tell that she knows. They haven’t ended it officially, but he knows that it’s getting there, especially after seeing Malia’s reaction to the look on Stiles’ face when he heard where Lydia is._

Scott should probably try to comfort him somehow, but he feels like there’s a barrier between them. Their argument is like a heavy weight on his chest; he’s still so confused and conflicted about it, but they don’t have the time for it right now.

Stiles looks up at him and says in a low voice, all the life drained from it, "What do you think Natalie meant when she said she _had_ to take her there? She made it seem like there was something very wrong with Lydia; she said something about her not being responsive.."

Scott bites his lip. _He's been wondering about that, too._ _What could possibly have happened?_ A gnawing feeling inside of him tells him that it has something to do with a certain ruthless chimera and his anxiety reaches a new high.

“I'm not sure, let's go find out. Hopefully she's calmed down a little by now so she can tell us everything.” Stiles looks up at him, barely holding it together, and nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback? Please let me know what you think!


	5. Mother Knows Best

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mrs. Martin tells Stiles, Scott, Malia, and Kira why she took Lydia to Eichen.

When Stiles and Scott re-enter the house, Natalie seems to have calmed down a great deal. She clearly does not like appearing weak in front of others, something the Martin women seem to have in common.

She seems to be expecting an outburst, though, because her eyes keep darting between the four of them.

Stiles sits down next to her, pats her shoulder gingerly, and says, “I’m sorry for what I said, Mrs. Martin. I’m just really worried about her, as I’m sure you are, too. Can you tell us everything that happened, please?”

Natalie squeezes his hand, “I know you’re worried.” She seems to be looking directly at Stiles when she says this, giving him a meaningful look that only Scott seems to catch. “I’m very glad that she has friends like you,” she says with a smile, this time, looking at all four of them, “But I’m sure this was the right decision. She needs help.”

Stiles has to dig his nails into his palms to refrain from saying something unkind because _really? Eichen House was the "right decision?" That hell hole hasn’t been any "help" to anyone for years._

“Just tell us what happened. Why did you feel it was absolutely essential to take her there?”

“She came home at night about a week ago, the night your father was attacked, Stiles, and she was really dirty, as if she’d just come from the forest or something.”

_The forest? What was Lydia doing in the forest at night? Probably one of her fugue states...Why didn’t she call him? Didn’t he tell her to always call him when she finds a dead body? But if he thinks about it now, she hasn’t complied with that order for quite a while and Stiles feels like that may be more his fault than it is hers, but that’s an issue that he can deal with later because God, he cannot handle anymore guilt right now._

The four of them nod, urging her to continue.

Natalie’s voice starts to tremble as she goes on. “I don’t know how she was able to come home by herself in the state she was in...she didn’t even drive, she came walking, and if I’m right about the forest thing, which is troubling within itself, she walked all the way from the forest to here.”

Before Stiles can compose himself enough to speak, Scott asks the question that was on the tip of his tongue. “What do you mean ‘the state she was in,’ Mrs. Martin?”

“She...she looked odd. Her eyes were glazed over and she was walking hunched over and in deliberate steps, nothing like Lydia’s normal strut. And she was barefoot. I tried to ask her why she was all dirty, what was wrong, but she just stared at me with those eyes; they looked dead, lost, like she was somewhere else. In short, she was catatonic and I had no idea why or how to help her.”

Natalie starts shaking, obviously envisioning that night as she tells them what happened.

Stiles looks like he’s about to break into a million pieces, his eyes filled with unshed tears, and his knuckles white from clenching them so hard. _Oh, Lydia. What happened to you? Who did this to you?_

He’s too shocked to speak, though, as are the other three it appears, so they stay silent.

Natalie continues, sparing them from responding. “I cleaned her up, forced some food into her, and put her in bed, but she remained completely unresponsive. I tried everything I could, but after two days, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t stand to look at her like that, with the only sign that she was alive being her beating heart, so I admitted her to Eichen.”

Kira speaks up, her voice unnaturally high, even for her. “Why didn’t you call any of us?”

Mrs. Martin looks at the four of them disdainfully when she says, “You’re teenagers, what more could you possibly do for her than what I did? I know you’re at an age where you think you’re invincible, but none of you would have been any use to my daughter in the state she was in.”

Kira shrinks back at this, embarrassed for being scolded and disregarded.

Scott is about to bite back at Natalie, but he thinks better of it; _she doesn’t know what they’re all capable of, what they know. In her eyes, they’re all still children who think they’re on top of the world and are above suffering._

_Scott looks over at Stiles and for some reason is reminded of a Greek myth they learned about in History class once, about a Titan named Atlas. He fought against the gods in some important war and his punishment was that he had to hold the sky on his shoulders. Stiles looks like that right now, like he’s burdened with the weight of the world on his shoulders as he hears what happened to Lydia._

“Well, I’m sorry that you think so lowly of us,” Stiles says through gritted teeth, “but may I ask why you said you didn’t want anyone to find out?”

Natalie ignores his jab, “Isn’t it obvious? Of course I wouldn’t want anyone to know that my daughter was admitted to an insane asylum! She’s already been victim to some terrible rumors, don’t think I haven’t heard people calling her crazy ever since she escaped into the woods after she was attacked after the school dance.”

This time, Malia responds. “So you didn’t tell us that Lydia’s catatonic in order to maintain her reputation in school? How tragic!”

Malia looks livid at this, which the three others seem shocked to see. They exchange nervous glances and Kira grabs Malia’s arm to calm her down, worried that her eyes might start flashing and cause Mrs. Martin a heart attack or something, especially since she seems to be pretending like she imagined everything that happened at the police station.

Stiles looks a mess, Malia is trying to get her anger in check, and Kira is assisting in that feat, so Scott decides to take charge.

“Thank you for telling us, Mrs. Martin. We’re sorry for any disturbance we’ve caused, we’ll go now.”

Natalie nods at him curtly, “It’s fine, thank you for your concern. I’m sure you’ll want to try to visit Lydia in Eichen, but as you all probably know, visitation is very restrictive. Please don’t try to cause any trouble there, you won’t be helping her by doing so. That place, as problematic as you may believe it to be, is her only hope for getting better, and I’m sure that’s all you want for her.”

She gives them a dismissive look and the four of them get up quickly, clearly all very eager to leave and discuss this elsewhere. They mutter their goodbyes and leave.


	6. My Heart is Heavy Without You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles checks in on his dad and Deaton has some input on the Lydia situation.

Scott, Stiles, Kira, and Malia get into Kira’s car and since she seems too shaken to drive, Scott decides to, instead.

No one knows what to say until Scott breaks the silence, “We should go see Deaton, we’ll need his help on this.”

“Oh, is the local veterinarian finally back in town? Did he have a nice little vacation?” Stiles remarks, both sarcastically and bitterly.

Scott replies, “He claims he was away on ‘important business.”

“I wonder how important it must be if it was worth leaving us to deal with the fucking Dread Doctors alone!”

Kira winces at this, thinking about how she, too, left them amidst all the chaos with the Dread Doctors.

Stiles sees her face fall and softens, “I’m sorry, Kira. I didn’t mean it like that, you had your reasons.”

“No reasons are enough to justify leaving you guys to deal with all this alone. I feel horrible, especially now that Lydia-” her voice breaks and Malia puts a comforting arm around her shoulder.

Stiles reassures her, “It’s okay, Kira. Let’s not dwell on who’s to blame for what, we all have enough guilt to last us a lifetime.” Scott meets Stiles’ eye in the mirror as he says this and Stiles looks down, his trembling hands the only indication of how he’s coping with this new knowledge.   

Malia speaks up, “I think going to Deaton is a good idea, we need to start formulating a plan.”

Stiles gives her a weak smile. He wasn’t sure how she’d react to all this, but he’s very grateful that she’s taking it the way she is and that she wants to help.

“Can you drop me off at the hospital first? I promised my dad I would go back to see him after the meeting. I’ll meet you guys at Deaton’s afterwards.”

Scott drops Stiles off, giving him a somewhat reassuring smile as he drives away with Kira and Malia.

Stiles starts walking into the hospital, his thoughts racing at an unnatural speed as he attempts to calm himself down enough that he doesn’t alarm his father when he sees him. He knows that he’s postponing the inevitable break down, but he has to stay strong right now.

He reaches his father’s room and decides then that he’s not going to tell him what happened to Lydia. He knows he literally just promised his father that he wouldn’t keep any more secrets from him, but this is too big of a burden to share with him in his fragile state.

Stiles walks into a room, mustering up a smile that probably looks extremely fake and forced, but he hopes his father isn’t as observant as he usually is, being as he’s all drugged up. The Sheriff perks up at the sight of him, attempting to sit up, wincing in pain in the process.

“Whoa there, big guy! I know you’re better, but let’s not get carried away with what we’re capable of.” Stiles moves to help him sit up as carefully as he can.

The sheriff sighs, “Hello to you, too, Stiles. How was the pack meeting? What was so important?” He looks so worried that Stiles is glad he decided to withhold the information about Lydia from him, he doesn’t need this added stress right now.

Stiles attempts to joke, “It’s nothing serious. Scott is just such a drama queen, he thinks everything’s ‘really important.’” He hasn’t told his father about his fight with Scott, which is another secret that’s piling up. _God, when did his life get this way? At least he’s not technically **lying** , this is merely omission of information._

“Then what was it about?”

“Deaton’s back in town and he wanted us all to get together to tell him everything that happened with the Dread Doctors, so it wasn’t exactly a cheery little pack party.” _It should probably be alarming how easily it's become for Stiles to lie, but he's grateful for it at times like these._

“Oh, that must have been stressful, how are you feeling?”

“I’m okay, dad. Don’t worry, we’ve dealt with much worse.” The sheriff probably thinks he’s alluding to the nogitsune and his face darkens at the thought. _Fuck. So much for keeping him at ease._

“Anyway! How are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling better, hopefully well enough to get out of this place soon. I hate hospitals.”

 _So do I,_ Stiles thinks _, I absolutely detest hospitals._ He cringes at the memory that recently resurfaced of his mother telling his father that ten-year-old him wanted to hurt her, wanted to _kill_ her, on the rooftop of this very hospital. He thinks of how the look on his mother’s face mirrored the one on Scott’s face when he confronted him about Donovan, of the identical fear in their eyes-

“Stiles? Are you okay?”

Stiles didn’t realize that he didn’t answer his dad, that he is visibly trembling in front of him.

He snaps out of those dark thoughts and forces a smile, “Yeah, dad, I’m fine! I’m glad you’re feeling better, although I’m not sure about the whole getting out of here soon, what you went through was pretty severe. Has Melissa been around?”

The Sheriff sighs. “Yeah, she has. Quite often, actually. I don’t know how we can ever repay her for all that she’s done for us these past few years.”

Stiles smirks. “You can try asking her out on a date.”

His father actually blushes at this, bless his heart.

The Sheriff fumbles, his mouth hanging open, “What the hell are you talking about? A date- what? You’re crazy.”

“Nah, just observant. You two have been flirting like teenagers for ages, Scott and I have had a bet going on for years to see when you’ll both finally wake up and realize that you’re meant to be. When you said you had a date the other day, I thought you meant Melissa and I was doing cartwheels in my head. I was very shocked when you said it was Mrs. Martin, of all people.” Stiles gives him an accusative look at that, still reeling that his father would want to date Lydia’s mother, but the thought of Lydia causes such a painful pang in his chest that all the playfulness disappears as quickly as it came.

His father shifts uncomfortably at this. “Melissa? Oh, don’t be silly,” he says as he once again, blushes like a school boy caught in the act, “And don’t worry about the Mrs. Martin thing, that was a one time thing, it clearly is not a good idea if what happened that night is any indication.”

Stiles doesn’t know why this information makes him sigh in relief, but he realizes that he should go find Melissa and start heading to Deaton’s.

“Good, Melissa suits you much better. I’m going to go find her right now, actually. Ask her how you’re doing, and then I have to head back to Deaton’s.”

“Oh, shut up. And okay, son. I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah, I’ll be back tonight. Love you, dad.” His eyes start glistening again as he hugs him goodbye and leaves.

He finds Melissa easily and asks her about his father’s condition.

“He’s doing well, but not well enough to be discharged as soon as he’d like, of course.”

“Yeah, I thought so. Thank you for looking after him while I was gone.”

“It was nothing, really. How are you feeling, honey? I just got off of the phone with Scott. He told me about your visit to Natalie, you must be so worried about Lydia.”

There are tears in her eyes as she says this and Stiles feels a pang in his chest at the sight. Melissa has filled the position of the mother of the pack and she’s been so involved in all the chaos that goes on, he wishes she didn’t have to share their burden like this.

“I am extremely worried, we all are. We’re all familiar with what goes on in Eichen House, no one more than me, so I don’t even want to think about what could be happening to her right now. She’s already been there for almost a week, and who knows how long it’ll take for us to think of a plan to get her out, if only we found out sooner…” Stiles’ voice cracks at the end and he finds that he can’t finish the sentence.

Melissa hugs him and Stiles lets himself release some of the tears that have been threatening to drown his entire world ever since he heard Mrs. Martin utter the words “Eichen House.”

“I’m so sorry, Stiles. It’ll be okay, honey. I know how much you guys mean to each other and that all you want is to protect each other, but Lydia’s a strong girl, and we don’t know what’s happening. Just have faith that you guys will get through this, like you have everything else." She pauses then says, "Scott told me that you and him got into a really bad fight, but he didn’t tell me exactly what happened. I can tell something changed between you two, and I know it’s hurting you both, but I need you to try to set aside any negative feelings you have for each other right now. I told Scott the same thing; the two of you will have to cooperate and work together, you’ll need each other to help Lydia.”

Stiles steps back and wipes at his eyes. He will forever be grateful for having Melissa in his life, she has been a constant motherly presence since he became friends with Scott.

“Thank you, Melissa. And of course, I’ll do anything if it means it will get Lydia far away from that place. Scott and I will eventually have to talk about our issues, but she is the priority right now and we wouldn’t let any bitterness towards each other get in the way of saving her. She means so much to both of us.”

Melissa gives him a small smile. “I’m glad to hear that, tell Scott to update me with any news, please. I’ll see you tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll be back tonight. Thanks again for taking care of my dad.”

Melissa pats his shoulder and walks away.  

Stiles calls a cab, again, _(God, he misses his jeep)_ , and heads to the animal clinic.

He walks in to find Scott, Kira, and Malia talking animatedly with Deaton and clears his throat to get their attention.

They all give him nervous glances, even Deaton, looking at him like they’re expecting him to explode any second.

“Nice of you to come back to good ol’ Beacon Hills, Deaton. We’ve missed you so.”

Deaton ignores the sarcasm. “Nice to see you, too, Stiles,” then more genuinely, “I’m very sorry to hear about the Sheriff, I hope he’s recovering swiftly?”

Stiles softens at this. “He’s better, thanks for asking.”

“Anyway, I’m assuming you all caught Deaton up on the horrors we’ve faced since he left? And the...situation with Lydia?"

The three of them nod and Deaton says, “What’s troubling is that Dr. Valack is at Eichen, I don’t think that’s very good news for Lydia, especially since you said he blackmailed her into screaming for him the last time you were there. He obviously needed that for something and he might have...intentions for her.”

Stiles feels his heart crawl into his throat. “What do you mean ‘intentions for her?’”

“Well, he clearly knows that she’s a banshee and if Lydia’s there, she’ll be in the supernatural level in Eichen, which is where Valack’s cell also is. So, he must be interested in her and her abilities. He wrote that book about the Dread Doctors, he knows a lot about them..”

Malia adds, “And he drilled a hole into his head. So he’s a psycho, we’ve established that.”

“Right. Valack = very bad man. Nothing you’re saying is making me feel any better about this. How do we get her out?” Stiles says impatiently as he looks at Deaton.

Scott is the one who responds. “We’re not sure yet, Stiles. We know that Eichen House employees don’t like to lose their patients, so we should expect them to put up a fight if we try to break her out.”

“Okay, then we’ll have to go prepared for a fight. This is Lydia, I don’t care what we have to do to get to her.”

Deaton looks at Stiles curiously and he feels uncomfortable under his gaze.

He looks him in the eye, “What?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s obviously not nothing, you were looking at me weird.”

“It’s just- Do you remember when you, Scott, and Allison sacrificed yourselves for your parents?” Scott winces at the mention of Allison, while Kira and Malia just stand there uncomfortably.

“Yes. That’s not something you forget easily. Especially since I got possessed by a demon because I couldn’t close the goddamn door in my mind that the sacrifice opened, ya know?” All four of them make uncomfortable noises at the mention of the nogitsune; they were all present for _that_.

_That was also the same day Lydia kissed him to stop his panic attack, so yeah, pretty unforgettable._

“Well, do you remember how I paired you all off?”

Scott jumps in, “Yeah, you said we were emotional tethers or something.”

“Precisely.”

Stiles looks at Deaton and responds, “Yeah, it was you and Scott, Allison and Isaac, and me and Lydia. What about it?”

“I just think that your tether with Lydia is getting particularly strong now that she’s so far away from you, it’s heightening all your emotions.”

“Is it? Well, that’s great. Just what I need, more emotional instability.”  

Deaton’s face sours at Stiles’ retort, but he manages to remain as calm as always. “I just think that its strength could be useful, especially since you mentioned that she was catatonic when she was taken to Eichen House. Your tether to her might be instrumental in helping her out of that stupor. Assuming, of course, that she’s still in it. Like I told you during the sacrifices, the tether wasn't only to hold the person under-”

"- it was to bring them back" Stiles finishes, as he remembers the conversation.

Kira sucks in a breath. “Well, that’s the first good news we’ve heard in a while!”

Stiles doesn’t want to get his hopes up too high, they don’t even have a plan yet, but at least this is _something._ It means that he’ll actually be helpful when it comes to saving Lydia, which he is beyond grateful for, because the feeling of helplessness he’s felt since Theo almost killed his father has been gnawing at him. They haven’t mentioned the emotional tether thing since the sacrifice, he was beginning to think Deaton was just talking out of his ass and that it didn’t really mean anything significant.

He feels something bubbling in his chest when he realizes that him and Lydia do actually have an emotional connection, one that was obvious to Deaton, one that might actually help save her from Eichen. _His mind flashes back to a day in the hospital so long ago, when he still worshipped the ground that Lydia walked on without even really knowing her, before their lives were turned upside down by the supernatural. “I've always thought that we just had this kinda connection, y'know, unspoken, of course…”_

Stiles looks at the four of them, who are giving him nervous looks because he hasn’t spoken in a while, and says, “Okay. So, what’s the plan?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a longer chapter. Any kind of feedback would be very much appreciated! Hope you guys liked my little shout out to the Sheriff/Melissa because I'm trash and they need to get together ASAP. I also hope the emotional tether thing that I threw in was received well, I'm still bitter about how they never brought it up again on the show. :))))


	7. You Can't Wake Up, This is Not a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I decided that I wanted to include something from Lydia's point of view of her time in Eichen House, so I condensed it all into this chapter. I had to re-watch the ending scene of 5A and the parts in the promos/trailers that show her time in Eichen and the things Valack said to her, it was not a fun time. I hate seeing Lydia like this. I hope you enjoy this chapter, though! Most of the story so far has been mostly background information and seeing things from Stiles' perspective, so I wanted to add something from Lydia's before I get into the actual rescue mission and the aftermath.

**Lydia’s POV - Her third day in Eichen House**

Lydia opens her eyes and immediately regrets it because the lights are way too bright, blindingly so. She looks down and feels restraints around both her hands and her legs and starts to panic. _Where is she? Why is she restrained? Why does her neck hurt so much?_

Just then, someone walks in and approaches her bed.

“Hello, Lydia. I’m so glad we’ve been given the opportunity to meet again! And so soon, too!”

_Valack. Why is Valack not in a cell in Eichen? Wasn’t that where he was last time they were here? Why is she anywhere near Valack?_

Her voice comes out as a croak, as if it hasn’t been used for ages. “Where am I?”

“Well, you’re in Eichen House, of course! Why else would I be here?”

_Eichen House????? Why is she in Eichen House? What is going on?_

“Why am I here?”

“Your mother brought you in. Poor thing, she was so worried about you. But we told her we’d fix you right up!”

“My mother? No, she didn’t. She wouldn’t. Why would she ever bring me here willingly?”

“You, ah, you had a bit of an accident that left you, how should I say this, unresponsive?”

“What do you mean? What happened to me?”

“You were catatonic, Lydia, do you know what that means?”

Even in her disoriented state, Lydia scoffs at this. “Of course I know what that means. The question is, why was I catatonic?”

“Indeed, that is the question. I’m not quite sure, but I think it has something to do with the mark on your neck. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

She nods a little at this.

“Do you remember what happened?”

“No. I don’t. I don’t even remember being brought here.”

“Oh, well, that won’t do at all! We need you to remember in order for us to be able to help you get better.”

“Why am I restrained?”

“We don’t know what you’re capable of, you could be a danger to others as well as yourself, so this is just a precaution.”

Lydia wishes she could spit on him, but it wouldn’t reach him with her restrained to the bed like this.

“Why aren’t you in a cell anymore? Last time we were here, that was your home. Now you’re acting like you own the place.”

“The employees have found that I can be of much more help to them with the patients than rotting in a cell. Now, Lydia, enough questions. I’ll be the one asking the questions from now on.” He forces a few pills down her throat, sticks something into her arm, and the room starts fading.

 

**Day Six**

She doesn’t know how much time has passed since she first woke up and discovered where she was.

Valack walks in and smiles at her, which chills her bones.

“Hello, again, Lydia. Are you ready to have a nice little chat?”

She doesn’t answer him, but he doesn’t seem to mind, he just comes and sits by her bed.

“So, what’s been happening in Beacon Hills? Tell me, Lydia, it started just after you began senior year, what happened? Tell me what happened to them. What happened to your friends?”

He starts listing her friends and when he says “What happened to Stiles?” Lydia visibly winces, her face twisting up in pain.

“The Dread Doctors.”

“Ah, yes, your memory seems to be just fine! They do seem to be the reason for many unfortunate events lately. Now, how did you come to be catatonic? I’m sure you can remember now.” He looks at her expectantly with a toothy grin.

“Why should I tell you anything?”

Valack starts to frown. “I think you should, it’s the only way you’ll be able to help your friends, the only way you’ll be able to save them.”

This breathes some life into her. “What do you mean? What happened to them???”

_Their names start echoing in her mind: Stiles. Scott. Kira. Malia. Liam. Mason. Hayden._

“Oh, Lydia,  relax. If you answer my questions, I’ll be happy to answer yours.”

Lydia starts shaking. “Theo...Theo, he sank his claws into my neck, to figure out where the nemeton was. So he took me to it, threw me on the ground, and brought the dead chimeras back to life.”

Valack looks pleased by her compliance. “Interesting, very interesting indeed. Thank you, Lydia. That will be all for today, I wouldn’t want to strain you.” Once again, he gives her some pills, rams something into her arm, and everything goes black.

The next time she wakes up, Lydia is allowed to take a shower. She feels trapped in her own mind, she can tell that she’s moving, but she doesn’t feel in control of her actions. She assumes this is what it feels like to be catatonic; she guesses Valack knows a way to induce a catatonic state.

A female orderly follows her to the bathroom, standing behind her as the hot water pours over her body. The woman makes remarks about how Lydia’s pretending to be catatonic, how she won’t buy into “the act.” She forces her into some clothes and along with another extremely creepy looking orderly, escorts her back to her room.

The female orderly tells him to increase her intake, sneering, “If she wants catatonic, give her catatonic.”

The other orderly sits down at the side of Lydia’s bed and although her eyes are glazed over and unmoving, her mind registers that she’s not restrained for the time being. She can hear him saying, “I can be gentle, I promise to be gentle,” and feels like something is crawling all over her body.

She wishes Stiles was here. She doesn’t know where that thought came from, but seeing this creep sadistically enjoying stabbing her with a needle makes her long for Stiles’ embrace, something she hasn’t experienced in far too long. Lydia doesn’t know if it was the thought of Stiles that did it, but she suddenly feels a scream rise in her throat and suddenly, she’s in control of her mind and body again, and the impact of the scream actually throws the orderly back.

_This is it, this is your chance to escape!_

She runs out, manages to fight off a few orderlies, actually emitting some kind of white force that throws them back _(when the hell did she learn to do that?)_ and makes it outside.

It’s pouring rain, but she keeps running, fighting off people left and right with skills she can’t recall acquiring until she reaches the stairs and sees him. _Aiden. What is he doing here? How is he alive? Aiden died. Aiden died right after Allison died._

He walks up to her and says, “Sorry, Lydia, but your treatment isn’t over yet,” just before she gets tased by the security guard behind her.

She falls to the ground and screams, “Please, I have to tell them! They're all going to die! My friends, they're all going to die!"

She looks up at Aiden’s smiling face and she knows.

_This isn’t real. None of this was real. They’re controlling her hallucinations now._

After that, she experiences this over and over; first with Allison, which makes her scream and sob for hours on end until she loses her voice and has to be sedated four times, then Scott. Kira. Malia. Liam. Mason. Sheriff Stilinski. Melissa. Her mother. Her father. 

They're trying to break her and they're winning. 

 

**Day Eleven in Eichen House**

Lydia wakes up and sees Stiles sitting at the edge of her bed. _How is Stiles here? Why is he here? She doesn't want him in this terrible place ever again._

“Hey, Lyds. How are you feeling?”

“Stiles? How are you here? Why?”

“Isn't it obvious? I’m here to get you out of this shit hole, Lydia.”

“How long have I been here?”

Stiles looks at her sadly. “Almost two weeks. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

_Almost two weeks? She’s been here that long? How is that possible?_

Lydia starts crying and Stiles grabs her and hugs her.

_Oh, how she’s missed this. She’s fantasized about him hugging her like this for so long._

“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too, Lydia. I was so worried.”

Lydia doesn’t know what to say, so she just sits there and stares at him, drinking in his features. She never thought she’d see those excessive, beautiful moles ever again.

“I knew you’d come, Stiles, you always do.”

He gives her a lopsided grin, one she hasn’t seen in a very long time, and it pulls on her heartstrings.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here!”

Stiles’ face falls, “We can’t, Lydia. Your treatment isn’t complete yet. You need to get better first. Here, take your pills.”

 _That’s when she knows, this isn’t real. This is another hallucination. Stiles isn’t really here and that breaks her heart into a million pieces. This is why she hasn't hallucinated him before,_ she thinks bitterly _, they were saving the best for last._

She starts screaming until she wakes up; when she does, she starts counting her fingers to make sure that she’s really awake. _How cruel is it to give her so much hope, only to crush it in a second?_

Lydia remembers that she learned that trick from Stiles and that makes her start crying. She continues to scream and cry until an orderly comes in and gives her something that knocks her unconscious.

She convinces herself that no one is coming to save her. Stiles isn't coming. Her mother thinks she's being treated for mental instabilty. Lydia's going to stay here until Valack gets bored of his little experiments, until her brain can't handle being tampered with anymore and shuts down.

**Day Twelve**

Lydia wakes up to Valack’s face looking down at her.

“Rise and shine, Lydia! I have something very special planned for you today.”

She doesn’t remember what happened after that, she just opens her eyes to see blood on her pillow. Her head hurts, a lot.

Lydia’s voice is hoarse when she asks, “What did you do to me?”

“I’ve amplified your abilities. You don't see it yet, why did Theo let his sister die?"

She feels so tired. She mutters, "Why do you care?"

"Because Theo was the first step in the right direction for the dread doctors."

Out of the corner of her eye, Lydia can see a bloodied instrument. She makes the connection. _Blood on her pillow, blood on the instrument, the pain in the side of her head. Trepanation. This bastard fucking drilled a hole into her head! Guess being a banshee increased her chances of surviving it._

Lydia starts screaming and Valack has no choice but to sedate her, sticking yet another needle in her arm.

She can faintly hear him say, “Tsk, tsk. You should have stayed calm and cooperated, Lydia,” before she falls into nothingness.

Lydia wakes up and they tell her she's allowed to take a shower again. She manages to escape from one of the orderlies and wanders into a room, where she finds Stiles knocking a security guard out with his bat. She giggles, of course he would come with a bat as his only weapon. He’s across the room, so she starts running to him, but one of the Dread Doctors materializes in front of her and stabs him in the heart.

She’s paralyzed in her place, she can’t believe what she just saw. She feels the scream tickling her throat, but no, she won’t scream for him. Lydia won’t scream for Stiles. _No, no, no, no, no._ She sees him mouthing her name before the lights go out of his eyes and he crumbles to the ground.

Lydia can't force the scream down anymore; it rips through her throat and brings her to her knees.

_Stiles is dead and she wishes she was, too._


	8. My Voice is Just a Whisper, Louder Than the Screams You Hear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moment you've all been waiting for! (More like the moment I've been waiting for, haha) Finally we get to the beginning of the rescue. The Stydia reunion is upon us!

The next few days pass like a century to Stiles. Between visiting his dad and planning with the pack, his emotions have been rampant and everyone has taken notice.

He’s barely gotten any sleep because when he does surrender to it, he has nightmares about his dad being murdered and Lydia being tortured to death in Eichen. Their screams are usually what wake him up, but he often feels like he can actually hear them throughout the day and has to start counting his fingers to make sure that he’s actually awake. Scott has seen him do this a few times and Stiles sees him share a concerned glance with Kira every time.

Every day that passes with Lydia alone in Eichen, Stiles gets more and more impatient and worried, often resulting in Malia threatening to strangle him if he doesn’t stop pacing.

He’s so close to deciding that he’s just going to throw caution to the wind and infiltrate the damn place by himself when Scott announces that they’re finally going to go tomorrow. _Halle-fucking-lujah! It’s about damn time._

_Tomorrow marks two weeks since she’s been in that horrid place, two weeks since he’s seen her, two weeks since she’s been at the clutches of who knows who doing who knows what to her._

As glad as he is that they’re finally going to try to break her out, he’s terrified of the state he'll find her in. He shivers when he remembers her screams from his nightmare, envisioning all the terrible things that could elicit such a horrifying sound.

Deaton looks at Stiles, breaking him out of his thoughts. “Just one more thing. It might be obvious, but Stiles is the only one who can get through the mountain ash barrier in the supernatural level of Eichen House, so he’ll have to go in alone to retrieve Lydia.”

Scott, Kira, and Malia exchange worried looks at this, but Stiles doesn’t even look fazed. “Yeah, I figured as much. That’s okay, I’m ready.”

Scott responds, “I’m not sure about this, Stiles. Maybe we should plan some more.”

“No matter how much we plan, this aspect of it is unavoidable, Scott. It has to be me and the rest of you have to be on the defense to ensure that I can get Lydia out without any resistance. And if there is, I’m prepared. I never imagined this would be easy. We can’t waste anymore time sitting around and beating a dead horse. In the end, this is our only option.”

Scott sighs. “You’re right, Stiles. We’ll just all have to be careful and hope for the best. We’ll meet at the hospital.”

After Scott makes this announcement, they’re all free to go and “get a good night’s sleep.” _Ha, not very likely._ Stiles suspects that his nightmares will be worst of all tonight. _Maybe he should just pull an all-nighter and not risk it._

They all say their goodbyes and Kira and Scott leave together, followed by Deaton.

Stiles has been meaning to talk to Malia, to apologize for how he’s been acting, so he grabs her arm as they’re walking out.

She looks at him expectantly. “Malia, I’m so sorry. Everything’s been so fucked up, I know I’ve been neglecting you-”

Malia holds up her hand to stop him. “Stiles, don’t. Your dad almost died. And in regards to Lydia, well, I think I understand now.”

He gives her a puzzled look, not seeing where she’s going with this.

She smiles at this. _For someone so intelligent, he can be really thick sometimes._

Malia shrugs. “We’re just not meant to be.”

Stiles is opening his mouth to object, but she silences him.

“And that’s okay. It’s been great, really. I’ll always be grateful to you for helping me adjust to human life, for showing me that I can have a life that doesn’t include sleeping in a cave and hunting wild animals. You gave me a pack, Stiles, which is something I never thought I would have. I was alone for so many years and I thought I was better off, but I see now that I was very wrong. But this,” she points between the two of them, “just isn’t working out. I deserve someone who will give me his whole heart, and that’s something you’ll never be able to do, whether you admit it or not. And I don’t hate you for it, or her. I’m not mad. I know you genuinely care about me, but it’ll never be as much as you care about her. I had my suspicions, but seeing you losing your mind worrying about Lydia these past two weeks has solidified it for me.. Scott and Kira were so worried about how they would tell you, how you’d react, and they kept sharing these meaningful looks that I didn’t understand, but I see it now. I heard them talking once about the crush you used to have on her, but I brushed it off, assuming it was in the past and that you were over it. But I should have known better; you’re Stiles Stilinski, when you care, you care with every fiber of your being. And that doesn’t just go away. I think this is as good a time as any to end things and clear the air. We’ll always be pack mates, though, and I still want to be friends. Thank you for everything.” She smiles at him and kisses his cheek.

Stiles is so taken aback by her speech that all he can do is smile back and hug her, whispering “I’m sorry” into her neck.

She pulls away, pats his shoulder, and says, “I’m worried about her, too, believe it or not. We’ll get her out.”

Stiles squeezes her hand and offers her a weak smile as she walks away.

**~Later that day~**

As he suspected, Stiles isn’t able to sleep all night. Melissa was able to sneak a reclining chair into his father’s hospital room about a week ago, so it wasn’t a matter of discomfort, he just didn’t want to succumb to the inevitable nightmares.

When morning finally comes, Stiles doesn’t tell the Sheriff where he’s going, just that he has to meet Scott for an important pack related matter. He can hear his father mutter, “Go to school, Stiles!” as he walks out.

 _School,_ he scoffs _, he misses the time when he worried about something as trivial as doing well on his SAT's and getting accepted into a decent college. Instead, now, there are things like missing pack members, ruthless chimeras, and barely human creatures that experiment on teenagers._

He sees Malia and Kira approaching as he roams through the hospital. Melissa comes up to them, worry etched into her features.

Stiles looks at her. “Oh, God. What’s wrong?”

“We’ve had about half of a dozen people coming in on the verge of death and there’s nothing anyone has been able to do for them. I haven’t been in to see them, so I don’t know if it’s supernatural related, yet.”

Scott walks up to them then, just as the five of them see four gurneys covered in garbage bags. Their faces darken at the sight and Melissa looks even more worried.

She turns to Scott and says, "Just promise you're not coming back in one of these."

He knows their plan to break into Eichen is really hard on her, with the sight of him dead on the ground still fresh in her memory.

Scott squeezes her hand and and gives her what he hopes is a look of confidence.

"We're coming back with Lydia."

Melissa smiles weakly, hugs each of them, and wishes them luck.

**~A short while later~**

So, as usual, absolutely nothing goes to plan. Stiles isn’t even surprised, to be honest.

They planned to draw out Valack to where Scott, Malia, and Kira would be waiting so that he wouldn’t be with Lydia, which would leave the window open for Stiles to get her, and that part of the plan was successful, but what they didn’t expect was one of the fucking Dread Doctors to show up. They have to hurry and get out quickly.

Stiles can hear the sounds of fighting above him as he approaches the mountain ash barrier, but all he can do is run, run, run because he has to get to Lydia, no matter how badly the plan seems to be going. He tries to block out all the sounds of pain he’s hearing because if he starts worrying about them, he’ll never reach her and this will all have been for nothing.

He only has a metal bat in his hand to defend himself and he doesn’t even hesitate when he uses it to knock out the first security guard he sees lunging for him.

Stiles spots the orderly they saw the last time they were here, the one who looked at Lydia weird, and tries not to think of this creep being around her for such a long time. His skin crawls at the sight of him, but he doesn’t seem like he has much fight in him, so he grabs him, punches him a few times, asking him _(more like screaming at him)_ where Lydia’s room is, and the poor bastard relents at the sound of his nose breaking. Stiles decides to knock him out, too, and runs down the familiar corridor.

_Room 412. Room 412. Where the fuck is room 412? If that asshole lied to him-_

That’s when he sees her. The door is open, which should raise some red flags, but he doesn’t even care. He feels like time has stopped at the sight of her sitting up on the edge of the bed, he feels like the breath has been knocked out of him. He can’t believe she’s actually there, just a mere few feet away from him. _Finally. Fucking finally._

Stiles feels like he’s about to sink to his knees and cry tears of joy like in some cheesy Nicholas Sparks movie, but they are not allowed such luxuries.

He starts running again, goes straight for her, and only stops when he’s standing right in front of her. She’s looking right through him, as if she can’t even see him, and Stiles feels like this is some cruel, metaphorical, ironic allusion to the days where he was invisible to her. But no, she’s not that Lydia anymore; he assumes she’s catatonic again. _Fuck you, Deaton. You just had to jinx it._

He freezes at the look in her eyes. Nothing Natalie said could have prepared him for this; Lydia’s beautiful sea green eyes are glazed over, unmoving, glasslike. She looks lost, dead to the world, but he knows his Lydia is in there somewhere, probably fighting to break through.

His eyes fill with tears. _God, he needs to stop looking at her eyes right now._ He lets his eyes roam over the rest of her and a vicious sob escapes his throat.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck. Everything else is so much worse than her eyes._ He sees big bruises on both of her arms and her neck where he suspects needles were jammed in none too gently.

He starts shaking with anger; he feels it seep into his very bones, _how could they have left her here so long?_

He finds a long cardigan next to her and gently puts her into it because he can’t stand to look at those bruises that are lodging daggers into his heart at the sight of them.

That’s when he sees her head, sees the dried blood there, and the blood on the pillow behind her. He freezes again.

_Stiles can’t believe he ever liked the color red. It was never his favorite, but he always had some appreciation for it. But ever since he’s seen it coloring the exteriors of people he cares about, ever since he’s found it stained on his hands one too many times, he has come to despise it. It’s the color of blood, the color of pain, the color of death, and it does not belong anywhere near Lydia Martin._

He’s openly crying now and he has to put his fist in his mouth to refrain from screaming because _God, why, why, why? They fucking preformed trepanation on her. They fucking drilled a hole into her head. Someone is going to pay for this, someone has to pay for this. He didn’t think it could get worse than when he saw her bleeding out on the ground in the police station a few weeks ago, but holy shit, this is so much worse. He curses the universe for everything it’s done to them these past few years; they’re still fucking kids, they don’t deserve all this._

 _Focus, Stiles, focus. The important thing right now is getting her out of the catatonic state, of getting her out of this godforsaken place. Don’t look at the blood, focus on her; remember what Deaton said, pull her back._ This repeats in Stiles’ head for several minutes as he tries to calm his anxiety because he feels it, he feels the panic attack crawling up his throat and he can’t succumb to it right now, he has to help Lydia.

He's had a few false alarms with panic attacks recently, since his father almost died and discovering where Lydia was, but it seems more potent this time, a real threat, and he tries to force it down by distracting himself with getting Lydia through this.

Stiles brings his shaking hands up to caress her face, the first time he’s dared to touch her skin since he walked into the room. For some reason, he expected her to shatter at his touch, but he’s grateful for whatever force is holding her together right now. _Quickly, Stiles, you’re running out of time._

He breathes her name out in such a soft voice, it’s nearly inaudible. “Lydia.”

_You have to do better than that._

“Lydia, I need you to come back to me. I need you to snap out of it. I know you’re scared and hurt, but I’m here to get you out of here and I need you to help me. I - I can’t do this without you.” His voice cracks at the end. _Come on, Stilinski, hold it together._

“Come on, Lyds, we’re a team, remember? I’ve never been able to get anything done without you. You’re the one who’s going to win a Fields Medal and get into some Ivy League school and leave me behind, but I’ll just have to get over it because you’re Lydia Fucking Martin and nothing can get in the way of what you want.”

Still no response. He's definitely going to have nightmares about the vacant look in her eyes, the stillness of her body, the lack of proof that she's actually alive.

“Deaton told me this emotional tether thing would work, that I’d be able to bring you back. Please, Lydia, please snap out of it. We’re running out of time. Scott, Malia, and Kira are fighting to the death upstairs just so I can get you out.”

 _So much for the so-called strength of their emotional tether_ , he thinks bitterly.

He pulls her to him and cries into her hair, whispering, “Please, Lyds, come back to me.”

Stiles feels movement, hears a noise that he can’t understand, but it’s enough to ignite a flame inside of him. He moves back and sees her blinking.

“Lydia?”

She looks up at him and she looks angry. _Why does she look angry?_

Lydia glares at him and starts yelling, “Stop fucking doing this! Leave me alone!”

She steps back from him and Stiles feels like she’s ripping his heart out of its tendons with every step she takes. He takes a cautious step towards her.

“Lyds? What’s wrong?”

Lydia’s face contorts in pain at this. She spits, “Don’t call me that. Don’t you dare call me that.” She looks absolutely lethal now.

Stiles looks broken and confused, he doesn’t even know what to say. _What is going on? Does she hate him for taking so long to come to her? That’s understandable, but she can hate him as much as she wants when they’re far away from this place that’s become his own personal Hell._

“Only _he_ called me that, that was his nickname for me. But now he’s gone. He’s gone and I couldn’t save him.” Her voice breaks as she says this, but she manages to still say it with so much anger, so much hatred, that it chills Stiles to the core.

“What? That’s my nickname for you, Lydia.”

“It _was_ Stiles’ nickname for me. You’re not him, you’re just another fucking hallucination. He’s dead and they’re torturing me by making me hallucinate that he’s alive and trying to break me out. It’s part of some sick treatment.” There are silent tears streaming down her face as she laughs bitterly, a terrifying combination.

Stiles is beyond confused right now. _They made her think that he’s dead? She’s been hallucinating him? What the fuck. Why would they make her hallucinate **him** , of all people?_

He takes another cautious step towards her and tries not to break at the sight of the hatred in her eyes as she steps back.

“Lydia, I’m not dead. I promise I’m not. I don’t know what you mean by me being a hallucination, but last time I checked, I was alive and well, even though that hasn’t been much of a relief lately.” He tried to joke, to be playful, but he ended up sounding bitter.

“This always happens. You always try to convince me that you’re Stiles, but I saw him die. I watched him die in front of my eyes and I couldn’t do anything to save him. I screamed for him.” She sinks to the ground at this, wrapping her arms around her knees and _God, she’s so fucking thin that it looks like she’s wrapping her arms around her entire body._

Stiles sits down next to her, craving to touch her, to comfort her in some way, to make her believe that these arms are the same arms she’s found solace in countless times, but he doesn’t know how.

“What do I have to say to convince you that I’m real, that I’m not dead?” Stiles asks softly.

“I don’t know, I doubt anything will be new. I’ve lived through this cruel reality too many times.” She sounds so hopeless, so resigned that Stiles feels like he could burn down the entire fucking world for what she’s had to go through and not be satisfied.

Stiles sighs. He’s at a complete loss for words, which is something he never believed would be physically possible for him. He hates himself for indirectly causing her all this pain, for being the reason why she looks so defeated. He imagines how many times she must have believed that he finally came for her, that he was really there to break her out of here, only to lose that hope in a matter of seconds. That feeling of utter helplessness is creeping up on him again and he wants to claw it out of his skin.

Lydia breaks the silence. Her voice is shaking now, losing the wrath that it sought to unleash just moments ago. “Tell me something that only my Stiles would know, something that I wouldn’t be able to conjure up in a hallucination.”

His breath hitches at her use of “my Stiles,” but he shakes his head. _Not the time, Stiles._

“So something that you don’t even know personally?”

She nods because all of the anger seems to have drained her of the little energy she had. _God, he wants to burn this entire fucking place to ashes._

He contemplates for a few moments, trying to ignore the incessant voice in his head that's repeatedly muttering _Tick, tock, you’re running out of time._

Finally, it comes to him. He doesn’t think she knows this, he hopes for everyone’s sake she doesn’t.

“I was the one who saved you from Peter on the lacrosse field after the dance, not Jackson.”

Stiles can hear her breath catch at this confession.

She’s staring at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since he walked in.

_Is he telling the truth? Those beautiful, whiskey colored eyes have never lied to her before, but can she risk it? Risk going through the same cycle that starts with so much hope and ends in heartbreak because of a moment of weakness?_

Her voice is so small when she asks, “Really?,” but he hears her.

“Yeah. I begged him to kill me, instead. I told him that you had nothing to do with it. He agreed to spare you if I went with him to find Derek, so I had no choice but to resort to telling Jackson where to find you before I left with him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were still in love with Jackson, so naturally, you’d want to believe that he was the hero who saved you.”

“But you were the real hero,” she says softly, with awe and something else, something filled with warmth, something akin to love, but that’s impossible, so he brushes it off.

“I guess, but I didn’t care about getting the credit as long as you were alive and well, that’s all that mattered to me.”

_Lydia wants to kiss him right then and there, but this is such a messy situation that she settles for crawling over to him and hugging him, instead._

She hears an intake of breath before he relaxes and returns the embrace.

Stiles wants to cry when he feels her prominent hip bones as he holds her, but they’ve wasted so much time; they have to go, now.

“I’m assuming this means you believe me?” He gives her a weak smile.

“You were dead. You were dead, Stiles. I screamed for you. I never, ever want to have to scream for you.” She starts sobbing and he helps her up so he can hug her properly. He tries to hold her as tightly as he can, yet at the same time as gently as possible so he can avoid causing her pain.

_Lydia finally accepts that this is real, that Stiles is real, that he isn’t dead, because none of his hugs in her hallucinations have felt this real, this solid, this safe._

He whispers, "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry it took me so long to come, I'm sorry this happened to you, I wish it was me, instead."

Lydia puts her hand on his chest, probably to make sure his heart is still beating, gives him a steely gaze, and says, "Don't you ever say that."

She falls back into him. Stiles rubs soothing circles into her back as the sobs wrack her body, trying to hold both of them together long enough to get out of this hell hole. He’s crying, too, but he wipes at them quickly. _Not the time. Not the time._

She probably senses his anxious urgency because she pulls back and wipes at her eyes, too.

Stiles looks into her eyes, beyond thankful that they are back to normal, although not as radiant as usual, grabs her hand, and says, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I doubt the Stalia break up would go this smoothly, but hey, a girl can dream, right? 
> 
> Please don't hate me for not including a Stydia kiss! I just know that it's not going to happen and I know that this is fanfiction and I'm in charge of whatever I want to write, but as much as I would love for them to kiss, I don't think it would be right? I'm not sure how to explain it, but I want their first real kiss to be when they're both consciously aware of each other, when they can't take it anymore and one of them just says "fuck it" and goes in for it. We already have a lot of Stydia haters saying that it was wrong for Lydia to kiss Stiles to stop his panic attack, that we're romanticizing a medical error and all that jazz, so having Stiles kiss her while she's catatonic would basically be handing them the fire that they want to burn us down with. I felt like Stiles just trying to talk her out of it, bringing her back with his voice, begging her to come back to him, was characteristic of their relationship and was enough. It's perfectly fine if you don't agree with me, though! It's just that Stydia is so important to me that I want every aspect of their romantic relationship done right. (But, of course, every person has a unique definition of what "right" is)
> 
> Let me know how terribly the reunion was written lmao, I'm not sure it was my best writing. The second part of the rescue, including the tunnel scene we saw in the latest trailer, will be the beginning of the next chapter. Then, I'll go into the aftermath of breaking Lydia out. So, much more Stydia goodness coming! 
> 
> **Random fun fact that I am sharing for no reason other than that it made me laugh: When I was writing the part about Stiles *finally* telling Lydia that HE was the one who saved her from Peter and not Jackson, I accidentally wrote "Jasper" instead of "Jackson" lmao. Guess that shows how I feel about Jackson's character?
> 
> Please let me know what you think of the story so far! I love feedback!


	9. Are We Out of the Woods Yet?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Lydia meet some resistance as they're navigating the tunnels of Eichen House in order to escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (side note: I realized after I wrote this chapter that Chapter 8's title, "Are We Out of the Woods Yet?" works much better for this chapter and that the line from Start of Time "My voice is just a whisper, Louder than the screams you hear" was much more fitting for Chapter 8. So, I'm sorry for any confusion that may cause!)

**Lydia’s POV**

Lydia is a lot weaker than she realized and she absolutely hates how vulnerable it makes her feel.

Stiles wraps one arm around her waist and he can probably sense her exasperation with needing help walking because he squeezes her hand and jokes, “Trust me, this is more for my benefit than yours. I’m running on little to no sleep for the past two weeks and frankly, I’m so terrified I can feel my knees shaking. You know how well acquainted I am with this lovely place, it brings back _so many_ beautiful memories.”

Lydia can hear the bitterness in his voice as he says this, but there’s also vulnerability and fear in there, too, so she relents. He needs her to ground him just as much as she needs him to, right now.

“I’m sorry that I’m the reason you had to come here again,” she says softly.

“Don’t say that, Lydia. I would go through Hell and back for you. And technically, this is my own personal Hell, so yeah.”

Lydia doesn’t understand how Stiles can say things like this so nonchalantly, like he’s simply talking about the weather. What’s in his heart is always on his tongue, so it’s normal to him, but he says it as if a declaration like this isn’t meant to affect her. Even in her disoriented state, Lydia feels warmth spreading through her at his words and she tightens her hold on him.

They keep walking for what feels like an eternity until they reach the entrance of the tunnels.

 _Oh, no. Not these tunnels. She hates these fucking tunnels._ It’s where the nogitsune brought her when it kidnapped her, where it taunted her. Lydia thought she was going to die, thought that it was going to kill her, which made her heart crawl in her throat because it was Stiles’ face, Stiles’ body, but it wasn’t her Stiles. This is where the real Stiles collapsed, where she held onto his unconscious body for support as she screamed for Allison, her best friend, the fallen warrior who was breathing her last breaths outside.

Lydia starts feeling the pain of her injuries all at once; her breathing becomes labored and she starts stumbling, nearly falling out of Stiles’ grasp in the process.

Stiles maneuvers his arm so that it’s wrapped around her back and shoulder, holding her ever so closer as she clutches his shirt. _How can he be so gentle about it?_ She can feel his hand moving up and down her arm in a soothing manner as they proceed forward.

“Lydia, I need you to stay on your feet. The plan didn’t go too well, so we need your help.”

_They had a plan, great. Because their plans are known for going **so** well._

“You had a plan?” She asks, with as much sass as she can muster.

“Against my better judgment, yes. Personally, I wanted to just come charging in the minute your mom told us where you were. But Scott, of course, had to be all rational about it and made us plan for over a week as if we were planning to break into the fucking White House.”

Stiles sighs. “But as I said, the plan didn’t go well, which isn’t very shocking, given our record, but I’m starting to get worried because Scott, Kira, and Malia were supposed to meet us here.”

Lydia’s about to ask what this elaborate plan consisted of when she sees someone approaching them from a distance. She was literally just catatonic a short while ago and the effects of the heavy drugs clearly haven’t worn off because her vision is blurred; she can only make out the figure of a person. _Oh wait, not **a** person, it’s two people. Fuck._

Stiles follows her line of sight and she can see his jaw tighten at the sight.

Lydia looks up to Stiles questioningly. “It’s that creepy orderly. I knocked him out after he told me what room you’d be in. Guess he’s here for some payback.”

“And he brought a friend.”

“Oh lovely, she’s equally as creepy. They make a great duo.”

Stiles is rambling and Lydia knows that means he’s nervous, but she’s feeling really smug about the fact that he knocked that asshole out. She felt her skin crawl every time he looked at her and she worried about him being around her when she wasn’t conscious.

“I was their _favorite_ patient,” Lydia sneers, “They particularly enjoyed ramming needles into me repeatedly, giving me dangerous doses of medication, and watching Valack preform the trepanation. I saw them in the room before I blacked out.”

Lydia feels Stiles shaking at the mention of trepanation and she immediately regrets what she says. The anger that seemed to course through her very veins as she spoke dissipates with one look at his face.

He looks miserable; his beautiful, honey colored eyes downcast as he whispers, “I’m so sorry, Lyds.”

She flinches a little at the nickname and she can see the apology in his eyes, but she touches his arm reassuringly.

He always said it with so much affection and that’s why it hurt her so much to hear it in her hallucinations of him. She heard that warmth that she's always associated with safety, only to have it stripped away from her when she realized that he isn't really there. That nickname was so Stiles, something he reserved just for her, which she held onto when she started feeling like she was no longer special to him. He’ll probably refrain from using it until she tells him it’s okay, but she’s already longing to hear it again, even though it comes with the fear that she’s hallucinating again, that none of this is real, that Stiles is dead. These bastards turned something that was so important to her, a nickname that used to make her heart race at the sound of it, into a weapon to use against her, tainting it forever.

He pulls her to him and kisses the top of her head, his lips lingering there a little. _It’s like he could sense the way she was feeling and needed to reassure her that he was right there next to her. Oh, how she’s missed these casual touches and moments of innocent intimacy._ She feels warm all over and gives him a small smile that seems to restore the light in his eyes, weak as the gesture was.

He pulls back and touches her head gingerly, where the blood is, _where the hole is_ , and she swears he’s about to kiss it, too, when his face contorts in anger and he lets his hand fall to his side. Lydia is suddenly cold at the loss of contact, but she reminds herself that this is not the place nor the time to be getting caught up in the moment.

As they both look up, they realize that they allowed themselves to be distracted from the impending danger because they see that the two orderlies are quickly approaching, identical lethal expressions on their faces.

“What are their names?” Stiles asks in a low voice.

“Toby and Agatha.”

“How very fitting, creepy names for sadistic creeps. Let’s make them pay for what they did, yeah?”

Lydia smiles a little at this, eager to inflict any amount of harm on these people that made her life a living Hell for the past two weeks or so.

The orderlies finally reach them and Toby turns to Lydia, looking at her hungrily with a glint in his eye that she has come to associate with impending pain.

He gives her a toothy grin and says, “I’m sorry, Lydia, but your treatment isn’t over yet.”

Stiles puts a protective arm around her shoulder and glares at both of them as he says, through gritted teeth, “Oh, I think it is.”

Toby finally acknowledges Stiles, looking at him disdainfully. "What are you going to do about it?" 

Stiles glares at him. "Look, asshole-" 

But Toby has lost interest in Stiles. He turns back to Lydia. "I was always gentle with you, Lydia, wasn't I?" His eyes find the exposed skin of her arm where the cardigan fell, looking at the bruises there. "I tried very hard not to damage your beautiful, soft skin."

Stiles lunges for him and the four of them start fighting at once, Lydia with Agatha and Stiles with Toby.

Lydia feels a strong sense of satisfaction when she punches the bitch in the nose with all the strength she can muster and sees a trickle of blood descending from it. She's shocked that she was able to cause this much damage in the state she's in, but she writes it off as either her banshee side lending her some much needed strength or those defense lessons with Parrish are really starting to pay off.

Stiles manages to subdue Toby for a moment, tackling him to the ground. When he sees how Lydia's faring, he raises his eyebrow at her, an expression of worry mixed with pride on his face.

That’s when the lights go out. _Great._

_Kira must be using an enormous amount of power for this to happen._

Lydia is really starting to worry about her friends, especially since Stiles mentioned that this was meant to be their rendezvous point. _Where are they? What’s holding them up?_

Suddenly, the lights are back on and Lydia turns around to see Agatha on the ground, holding her nose, starts to smirk a little at that, but then she sees Toby restraining Stiles with a taser held up to his neck.

Lydia starts moving forward. “Ah, ah, ah! Stay where you are!”

Agatha gets up off the ground, looking very smug. “You know, that isn’t any ordinary taser. Its shock levels have been dramatically increased to handle...creatures like you.”

Stiles has the audacity to maneuver himself enough in Toby’s grasp in order to spit at her. _God, Stiles, this is not the time. Please don’t antagonize them when one of them has a lethal weapon held up to your throat._

Toby grabs Stiles harshly, pushing him against a wall.

He looks at Lydia with a manic look in his eyes. “But he doesn’t seem to be anything special, so imagine what one shock of this would do to him!”

Stiles’ spastic limbs clearly don’t like being restrained; he keeps trying to kick or elbow Toby.

Lydia wishes he would stop resisting, he’s only hurting himself further. “Stiles, stop!”

Agatha freezes at this. She starts glancing between Lydia and Stiles, a too-wide smile forming on her face that somehow makes her look even creepier than she does when scowling.

“So this is Stiles!”

Toby looks confused, but he shoves Stiles forward so that they’re closer to Agatha.

Stiles gives Lydia a questioning look and she returns it. _How does Agatha know his name?_

Lydia feels every ounce of energy drain from her body from that brief session of straining physical activity, so she resigns to partially leaning against a wall. She makes sure to keep her expression stony, though, so that she doesn't appear as vulnerable as she feels. Her hand hurts from when she broke Agatha's nose, but she ignores the pain because that seems to have been their only victory thus far and  _dammit she's proud of herself_. 

Agatha turns to her, looking far too happy for Lydia’s liking.

“This is the guy whose name you’ve been whimpering in your sleep? Every goddamn time I've been told to check on you when you're sleeping, that's all I hear. 'Stiles, Stiles, Stiles!' It’s _so_ fucking annoying."

Stiles looks at Lydia with an expression she can’t decipher. It’s soft, yet hard at the same time. He mostly just looks shocked.

Agatha covers her mouth in a mock gasp. "Oops, was I not supposed to mention that?" She starts laughing. 

Toby seems to be catching on. "Oh, yeah! We've had to sedate you multiple times because you've woken up screaming his name and sobbing!"

Agatha starts taunting Lydia, mocking her. "What is it that you're always mumbling? 'I'm so sorry, I couldn't save you!'"

Stiles is speechless, he just keeps staring at her.  

Lydia can feel her face burning under his gaze, so she decides to look down at the floor. She won’t give this bitch the satisfaction of seeing her vulnerable, of proving to her that she has found a weakness that she can manipulate.  _Especially since that weakness is Stiles._

Toby joins in, "How very fitting that he would be the one who would come try to save you!" He's smiling, with a twinkle in his eyes, as if he's genuinely touched by the romance of it all.

Agatha also persists, clearly very happy to have this new information.

“He’s not much, though. Doesn’t really seem like he would be your type.”

 _Shit._ Lydia’s eyes flick up quickly to see Stiles’ reaction to this. His expression is that of a wounded animal for a few seconds before he composes himself, leaving nothing but anger.

She feels that right now, that fury. The fire is burning inside of her because _how fucking dare she?  She just poured salt on an old wound without even realizing it._

The brief hurt that she saw on Stiles' face is enough to make Lydia want to tear these two to shreds.

Stiles doesn't give her the chance to respond, whether because he's afraid to hear what she'll say or he just wants to spare her from acknowledging what was said, she's not sure.

“Yeah, yeah. We all know I’m no Abercrombie model, can we get on with it?”

Lydia will never understand how Stiles can maintain his snark in life-threatening situations, but she supposes it's the only thing that keeps him from panicking.

She hates that he's saying this at his own expense, though, that he's making a joke out of something that clearly hurt him. _Does he really still think that's true? That he's still "not on her radar," that he's not good enough? Oh, if only he knew._

_But why would it hurt him, anyway? He has Malia now..._

Agatha ignores him. "Valack did tell us that he noticed that you were particularly upset when he asked about Stiles in one of your earlier sessions with him. He listed all of your friends, but you reacted much more to the sound of _his_ name." She says this thoughtfully, as if this is a mind game that she feels like she’s winning.

Toby cuts in, still grinning. "That's why Valack decided that he would be most effective to use in your treatment, to gauge the most emotional reaction out of you."

Lydia's face was already unnaturally pale due to malnourishment and the excess drugs, but the little color that was left is drained from her face when she hears this. She can't even form thoughts that would adequately express how angry she is.

Stiles starts thrashing in Toby's arms. "You're fucking sick! All of you!"

Just when Lydia feels like she's about to collapse, Agatha holds the taser up to Stiles' head.

"I wonder how quickly this would fry his brain. I've never aimed for it before, it'll be an interesting experiment!"

Lydia doesn’t know how it happened. One minute, she was running towards them, screaming Stiles’ name in horror, and then she sees this white force throwing Toby and Agatha against the wall. And the crazy thing is, this force came from _her_. She starts panicking, thinking she’s hallucinating again because she’s done this before in that first hallucination, the time she saw Aiden. But then she sees Stiles rushing over to her, his beautiful eyes looking down at her in worry.

Lydia brings her hand up to lightly touch his face, hoping beyond hope that this wasn’t all another hallucination, that she won’t wake up to a world where Stiles is really dead, (because if that is reality, then she hopes she _never_ wakes up), before the world goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not 100% sure that the Stydia scene in the trailer where Stiles is supporting Lydia is in the same tunnels where the nogitsune took Lydia and where Stiles collapsed like I described here, (so don't quote me) but I just wrote it that way for emotional effect. 
> 
> Two fun facts:  
> 1\. Sometimes, depending on my mood, I like to listen to music while I’m writing. So, as I started writing this chapter, “Start of Time” came on, which made me start crying a little because what a coincidence, right? 
> 
> 2\. I literally googled “creepy guy names” when I was thinking of what to name that creepy orderly. I already had Agatha in mind for the woman, (I am extremely sorry to anyone named Agatha, it was literally the only name I could think of and the female orderly in the first scene of 5A looked like an Agatha to me tbh) but I had a hard time thinking of a name for the guy. I know, it’s ridiculous that I put so much thought into such a small detail lmao.
> 
> As always, I'm thirsty for any kind of feedback!


	10. My Mind's Like a Deadly Disease

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles brings Lydia to his house to recover, but her sleep is plagued with nightmares and she's not ready to accept comfort, yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my plan to make this 10 chapters failed miserably. Expect more from this story!

> **Lydia’s POV**

Lydia wakes up screaming. Again. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to sleep soundly again, if she’ll ever lose this fear of closing her eyes.

She shoots up as she screams, immediately noticing a change from what she has grown familiar with for the past few weeks. She’s not waking up to restraints on her hands and legs, nor to the faces of Valack or the orderlies.

Lydia’s vision focuses on Stiles first, standing next to her, reaching out to her in an attempt to calm her down. Then, she sees Scott on her other side and Deaton behind her.

She doesn’t have time to register much else from her surroundings, though, because Deaton plunges a syringe into her as she croaks out, “No, not again!”

She can vaguely hear Stiles protesting before everything fades to black. Again.

**~About a day later~**

When Lydia comes to again, she starts panicking, but quickly slips into the familiar feeling of numb resignation. She is ready to accept that she imagined Stiles getting her out of Eichen, that the entire ordeal was just another fucking hallucination. She must have imagined waking up to seeing Stiles, Scott, and Deaton gathered around her, too.

But then she starts to feel something she hasn’t felt in what feels like an eternity: the softness of a bed. It’s not rough like the bed in Eichen, with its extremely thin mattress that made her feel like she would be more comfortable sleeping on the ground. _And oh the pillows; they’re so fluffy, so perfectly soft._ Lydia feels silly for getting so worked up over something as simple as a soft bed with equally soft pillows, aren’t these normal human luxuries?? But she hasn’t felt human since she entered Eichen House; she was more like a lab rat whose sole purpose was for experimentation.

_No, stop. Don’t think about it. Distract yourself._

Her mind is an extremely dangerous place right now and it will be for the foreseeable future, so she focuses her attention elsewhere.

She tries not to move around too much because every part of her seems to ache, but she lets her eyes wander, taking in her surroundings. The lights are out, but she can still tell where she is: Stiles’ room. She’s been here many times; she would never admit it, but this was always one of the few places where she truly felt safe. Her and Stiles spent many long nights here, researching, trying to understand the newest supernatural threat that the pack was faced with.

Lydia is surprised that he brought her here, but she’s also grateful because she doesn’t think she’s ready to face her mother just yet. She’ll only blame her for taking her there, for being the reason why she went through all that she did, so she needs to give herself some time to see things from a rational perspective the way her mother always does.

She hears footsteps approaching and she decides that she’s not ready to talk to anyone, not even Stiles, so she pretends to still be asleep when Stiles and Scott walk in.

Lydia can feel both of their gazes on her as they stand in silence.

After a few moments, Stiles coughs awkwardly. “So, are you healing well?”

Scott turns to him. “Yeah, almost completely. Kira and Malia are, too.”

“Good, that’s good. I was worried about you guys. I heard the screaming and when the lights went out…”

“Yeah, we weren’t doing too well against the Dread Doctor. Kira nearly burnt herself out with all the power she used before it finally decided to leave.” Lydia can hear his voice cracking a little when he says this and she silently thanks whatever greater power there is that they all made it out safe. She doesn’t know how she would have lived with the guilt if something happened to one of them while they were trying to save her…

Stiles sighs a little. “Why do you think it left?”

“I have no idea, I’m just very glad that it did.”

Lydia assumes that Stiles returns his gaze to her, probably with worry etched into his features, because she hears Scott say, “You did good, Stiles. You got her out. She’s safe now.”

She discreetly peeks around the covers a little to see Scott awkwardly pat Stiles on the shoulder and walk out of the room.

Lydia can sense tension between them and she’s wondering what could possibly have caused it when she feels Stiles approaching the bed. She shuts her eyes quickly before she feels him gently brushing her hair out of her face.

His fingers linger a little on her face, near her head, and it takes everything in her not to flinch away from his touch. The rational part of her knows that this is Stiles, knows that he would never hurt her, but she’s not comfortable with physical contact right now. She’s been poked, prodded, bruised, and fucking _drilled into_ in the past two weeks; her skin seems to be rejecting any form of touch, regardless of how comforting its intentions may be.

He touched her while he was getting her out of Eichen, of course; his arm was around her nearly the entire time as he was supporting her, but now that she’s out of the immediate danger, she’s become more responsive and she assumes that some minor PTSD has begun setting in, merely as an immediate reaction to the traumatizing situation she was in.

Thankfully, Stiles removes his hand and steps back to look at her a little.

“What am I going to do with you?”

“Maybe I should just handcuff you to me so that I’ll never lose track of you again.”

Lydia can hear him laughing to himself a little at this, no doubt imagining how they would look handcuffed to each other all the time. She wants to get up and smack him, but she’s mesmerized by the sound of his laugh. Weak as it was, it’s become something of a luxury, something she hasn’t had the privilege of hearing in far too long, so she tries to enjoy it while it lasts.

Stiles shakes his head. “Aaaand, I’m talking to myself.”

He whispers “Sleep well, Lydia,” adjusts the blankets so that he’s satisfied with how she’s cocooned in them, and then quietly leaves the room, which is quite a feat because “Stiles” and “quiet” usually do not agree.

When she succumbs to sleep this time, Lydia actually thinks that she’ll be able to sleep peacefully. _Ha, like that’s even possible._

She dreams that Valack is forcing her to watch everyone she cares about being murdered by Theo and the Dread Doctors. _Her mother. Her father. Stiles. Scott. Kira. Malia. The Sheriff. Melissa. Liam. Mason. Hayden. Parrish. Mr. Argent. Isaac. Brayden. Derek._

Valack releases her and she’s screaming and sobbing, lying in a pool of the blood of all the people who have been important to her, the people she couldn’t save.

“You could have avoided all of this if you didn’t resist your treatment, Lydia! You could have saved them all!”

Then, for good measure, he shows her all the people she’s already lost. _Allison. Aiden. Her grandmother._

He makes her watch the three of them scream her name as they are killed all over again.

Lydia finds it difficult to breath correctly, she’s starting to hyperventilate at the sight of all the blood coming from the people she cares about. It's too much, it's painting the entirety of the floor now; she can't even tell who it's coming from anymore. 

She runs to each one of them like a mad woman, whispering "I'm so sorry," and staining her already bloodied hands.

Valack has the audacity to laugh at her reaction, clearly enjoying her pain.

Her grief is suffocating her and she wants so badly to succumb to it, to die right then and there. She sinks to her knees and let’s out a loud, terrifying scream; she screams for every single person she sees in front of her, her heart threatening to collapse in on itself.

Lydia wakes up, but the scream won’t cease. It only stops when she sees Stiles run into the room, a look of pure panic on his face.

**Stiles’ POV**

He rushes up to her. “Lydia! What’s wrong?”

A mangled sob escapes her throat as the tears start to gush out.

He starts reaching for her, but she flinches back. Stiles looks wounded at this, Lydia has never rejected his comfort like this, but this isn’t the time for hurt feelings. He opts for sitting on the bed, leaving a considerable amount of space between them so as to not upset her further.

Lydia has her arms wrapped around her legs, her entire body shaking uncontrollably as she sobs into her arms.

Stiles watches her silently because he knows that she’s not ready to speak, knows that she needs to cry, to release all the pain that is engulfing her right now. He’ll sit here until she’s ready, hoping that his presence will serve its purpose in calming her if nothing else.

_Stiles never imagined that he would ever see Lydia like this. He’s seen her vulnerable before, he’s seen her cry before, but he has never seen her look so absolutely broken, so defeated, as if she’s fought the world and it had won, stripping her of all her strength._

The sight breaks his heart into pieces, making him wish he could do anything to fix this, to turn back time so that he could have done something to stop Natalie from taking her to Eichen. He still doesn’t even know what caused her to become catatonic, which was the reason why she was admitted to that Hell hole in the first place.

Stiles knows he’s been neglecting Lydia lately and he absolutely hates himself for it. He knows he got so caught up with helping Malia adjust to human life after the nogitsune situation, which was probably a form of escaping from what he went through. He found it difficult to look at Lydia after it, knowing that Allison’s death was his fault, that he was the reason why Lydia lost her best friend in the world.

_If only he wasn’t so weak, if only he had been strong enough to close that goddamn door in his mind like Allison and Scott were able to._

He tried to distance himself from her, even though it hurt him to do so, because he wasn’t strong enough to deal with the guilt he felt about both Allison and Aiden’s deaths. Stiles could never understand how Lydia didn’t hate him after knowing that a demon with his body and his face ordered the death of her best friend. He knows she doesn’t blame him, but he feels like she should. He can’t fathom how she can look into his eyes and not see the killer who wore his face.

_Well, Lydia, you may not have believed that I was a murderer then, but I am now. Just ask Scott._

Lydia snaps him out of his thoughts with her voice.

**Lydia’s POV**

“I - I watched you die….all of you..they killed you all...and I - I - I couldn’t save you..”

Stiles looks at her, a tortured expression on his face. She can tell that he’s being cautious with her ever since she flinched away from his touch when he first came in.

“It wasn’t real, Lydia. I’m okay. We’re all okay, I promise.”

This doesn’t seem to reassure her.

“Then I saw A-Allison, and Aiden, and my g-grandma” she says in between sobs.

"I watched them die all over, again. They s-screamed my name before they were killed, again. Th-there was so much blood, Stiles. So much b-blood." Her entire body is shaking right now and she can't help it.

She looks at her hands, expecting to seem them stained with the red, but they're pristine aside from the callouses she's developed throughout her time in Eichen. She's staring at her hands so intently, as if willing them to show her their true, bloodied form.

Lydia detests feeling and looking so vulnerable, but if it has to be in front of anyone, she’s glad it’s Stiles.

She knows he’s itching to touch her, to comfort her the only way he can, and part of her wants him to, wants to collapse in his arms and cry her heart out. But another part of her is terrified that this is another hallucination, that he’s actually just Valack toying with her mind again.

“I’m so sorry, Lydia. It wasn’t real, it was just a terrible nightmare. This” he points between the two of them “is real, though.” He holds up his fingers and counts all ten. “See?”

“I used to use that trick there sometimes, but it reminded me of you when I thought you were dead, so I stopped.” She says, her voice nearly inaudible with the weight of her misery.

“Fuck. I’m sorry! I won’t do it again.”

She looks like she’s about to retreat into herself again, so Stiles speaks up.

“Lydia, Deaton has this concoction that he promises causes a dreamless sleep. Do you want to try it?”

Lydia nods slowly. _A dreamless sleep? That sounds pretty perfect right now._

Stiles fumbles to get up. “Great! I’ll go let them know downstairs, Deaton said it can be made into a tea.”

He leaves the room and Lydia tries to pull herself together, wiping at her very bloodshot eyes.

 _You’re not in Eichen anymore. You’re in Stiles’ house, you’re safe now. Calm down. No one is dead, they’re all fine. You’re safe._ She repeats this in her head until she hears someone come in and looks up to see Melissa smiling nervously at her.

“Hey, Lydia” she says softly.

Melissa approaches the bed, sets the cup she’s holding down, and sits on the edge of the bed.

Lydia sits up a little. “Hi, Mrs. Mccall. How are all of them?” she croaks.

“They’re all fine, sweetie, don’t worry. They’re healing normally.”

“Good, I’m glad.”

Melissa's face softens. _God, this woman practically radiates warmth._

Melissa is a nurse, which should make Lydia panic after the experience she just had with _Doctor_   Valack and those sadistic orderlies, but the only thing she's come to asssociate her with is safety and healing.

“I’m so glad you’re safe, we were all so worried. Thankfully, none of your injuries seemed severe enough to require hospital care.”

Lydia unconsciously brings her hand up to her head, where the _hole_ is, but she sees Melissa's face contort in pain, so she brings it back down to her side quickly.

Melissa sees this and reacts instantaneously, her hand covering her mouth. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry...I didn't mean to belittle your suffering! We're all horrified by  _that,_ of course, but according to Deaton, there shouldn't be any damage done to your brain. Apparently, that procedure has been done on banshees in the past in an attempt to amplify their powers or something. I'm going to take you to the hospital when your overall condition improves a little to preform a scan to be sure, though." 

Lydia nods, not wanting to talk about the trepanation right now, especially not when Melissa looks so upset about it.

Melissa genuinely looks relieved to see her safe and well. Lydia tries very hard to not see her beautiful, kind face lifeless and bloodied like it was in her nightmare.  _It wasn't real, Lydia. She's fine._

Lydia gives her a weak smile. 

“Kira and Malia helped me clean you up a little when Stiles and Scott brought you from the animal clinic.” _So, that was real._  "And since we didn’t want to...bother your mother about clothes, Stiles gave me the smallest clothes he could find.” _So, they didn't tell her mom that they broke her out yet, good._

Lydia looks down at her attire, not even realizing that she’s dressed differently, let alone in _Stiles’_ clothes. For some reason, this makes her feel all tingly inside, but she ignores it. _Not the time._ She’s wearing a Star Wars shirt and too-big sweats, how typical of him.

“Thank you so much.”

“Not a problem, honey. Come on, drink up, you need some sleep.”

Lydia obliges, allowing the warmth of the drink to soothe her.

Once she’s drained it, Melissa takes the empty cup, adjusts her covers, smiles at her, and closes the door behind her.

Before she drifts off, she can faintly hear a conversation between Stiles, Scott, and Melissa.

“How is she?” asks Scott.

“She’s..as okay as would be expected.”

Scott sighs. “Hopefully she’ll be able to sleep.”

“She flinched when I tried to comfort her after she woke up screaming, like she was scared of me or something.” Stiles’ voice cracks a little when he says this, which pulls on Lydia’s heartstrings. _It’s not you, Stiles, I swear._

“Stiles, honey, you have to understand the depth of what she’s been through...It’s normal for her to have some PTSD. It’s not you that she’s scared of, it’s just going to take her some time to actually feel safe, to be comfortable with any form of physical contact. We just all have to be patient.”

Scott adds, “And you said she had hallucinations while she was there, which is probably making it difficult for her to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not.”

Stiles sighs. “Yeah, I know. You’re right. I’m being petty.”

At that, Lydia starts to drift off into what she expects to be a dreamless sleep. And at first, it is, but she soon feels herself slipping into the same nightmare she just recently woke up from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lydia's PTSD is an idea I had, being as we don't know the depth of her experiences at Eichen and even if they were as traumatic as I wrote them, I highly doubt the writers would deliver on showing the consequences of them. I'm not sure it was written very well, though, so let me know. I don't plan to keep her uncomfortable with physical contact for long; I just thought it was important to show the uneasiness at first to give a somewhat realistic portrayal of how difficult it is to adjust after what she went through, the process of accepting that this is real, that the people around her are people she cares about, ones who will never hurt her. I tried to explain why she wasn't flinching away from Stiles while they were escaping Eichen, so I hope it made sense! She'll reach this level of acceptance soon because my shipper heart can't handle anymore angst, to be honest. I didn't even know I was capable of writing angst lmao. I actually got really emotional writing this chapter and had to take a break for a few hours to get back into writing it, so I hope it is received well, even though the Stydia isn't very blatant. 
> 
> Feedback is my best friend, so comments are very much appreciated! Next chapter should be less intense and hopefully fluffier! (I'll do my best to post it before I fall into the abyss known as finals)
> 
> Feel free to follow me on Tumblr and come rant about Stydia with me! blossomingintheshadows.tumblr.com


	11. Take Me into Your Loving Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This time, when waking up from her nightmare, Lydia finds comfort in Stiles and they talk about some really important things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am soo sorry for taking so long to update! I thought I would be able to get in another chapter before finals week started, but unfortunately, I wasn't. I hope everyone who was taking finals got through it smoothly! My winter break has officially started, so I can spend all my time catching up on reading (I have a list of 26 books) and writing this fic, yay!

**Lydia’s POV**

Lydia screams herself out of the nightmare midway, before Valack can bring in Allison, Aiden, and her grandmother.

Stiles runs into the room, out of breath, as if on cue.

“Lydia, are you okay?!”

He looks around frantically, probably ensuring that there wasn’t some kind of threat that elicited such a scream from her, again.

“I - I’m fine. Same nightmare.” Her voice shakes as she says this.

Stiles sighs as he drags his hand over his face. “So much for ‘dreamless sleep,’ huh? I’ll be having some words for Deaton.”

“It worked at first..but I ended up falling into it anyway,” Lydia says softly, clearly on the verge of another breakdown.

Stiles approaches the bed cautiously, kneeling on his knees in front of the bed.

His voice is warm when he speaks. “It’s okay, Lydia, it wasn’t real.”

Lydia nods slowly, trying to convince herself of this.

“Thank you for bringing me here and not to my own house.”

Stiles nods. “Of course. I didn’t think you would be ready to go home right away.”

“You were right, I can’t face her yet…” The image of her mother’s corpse from the nightmare surfaces and Lydia breaks.

She starts shaking and Stiles looks alarmed, unsure of what to do.

“Stiles....can you..?” She tries to contain herself, but her voice cracks in the process.

Stiles is suddenly very alert.

“Lydia? What do you need?”

“You.” She kind of motions to the space next to her, willing him to understand. She can’t stand the lack of contact anymore, she has to conquer her fear. Lydia is strong, but even the strongest people break and when they do, they can’t always put themselves back together single-handedly.

Stiles stutters a little in response. “A-are you sure? I-I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Lydia..”

“I’m sure, I can’t-” she gets cut off by a sob escaping her throat.

Stiles immediately launches into action, climbing onto the bed with as little spasticity as possible, and gently gathering her into his arms.

Lydia hesitates a little, but she relents quickly as she feels the warmth of his body as it envelops her and the gentleness in which he holds her. “You’re Stiles, the real Stiles. You won’t hurt me.”

Stiles looks down at her with a broken expression on his face, trying so hard to keep the tears at bay and be strong for her. “That’s right, Lydia, I would never hurt you.”

He rests his head on top of hers, holding her as tightly as possible without weighing on her injuries, as she releases all the emotions that have been bottling up for the past two weeks (and if she’s honest with herself, much, much longer than that. She has been a mess for so long, never allowing herself the luxury to properly react to everything that happened since Allison’s death).

Lydia doesn’t know how much time passes, with her sobbing in Stiles’ arms and him rubbing circles into her back with one hand and stroking her hair with another, attempting to soothe her without words. She is so grateful for him in that moment, grateful that he doesn’t speak, grateful that he is content to simply wait patiently for her to get through this breakdown and not judge her vulnerability.

Although it’s silent, Lydia can tell that Stiles is also crying softly into her hair. Oddly enough, this makes her feel strangely whole. They are connected in their grief, in their darkness, in all the injustice they’ve faced these past few years. She’s not brave enough to tell him this right now, but his arms are the only place where she could truly find solace, the only place where she feels comfortable sobbing her heart out in the process of unburdening herself of the trauma she faced.

Once she feels that she has effectively cried herself dry, Lydia wipes at her eyes and looks up to Stiles.

Stiles’ comforting hand movements come to a stop and she sees him failing to wipe his own eyes discreetly, probably hoping that she didn’t notice that he was also crying. _Always so selfless. Selfless Stilinski._ He looks down at her and tries to muster up a reassuring smile.

“You know, as much as it’s literally killing me to see you like this right now, I still stand by what I said before. You look really beautiful when you cry.”

The corners of her lips are dangerously close to turning up because she cannot believe he just said that right now. _This is not the time to be charming, you stupid, lovable dork._

Lydia settles for lightly smacking his arm in response.

He smirks a little at this. “Feeling better?”

Lydia nods and croaks out, “A little. Thank you.”

“No, thank _you_ for allowing me to help. I felt so useless yesterday when you woke up screaming the first time and flinched away from me when I got close.” Lydia can hear the same sadness in his voice she heard when he shared this concern with Melissa and Scott before she drifted off.

She touches his arm softly and sighs. “It isn’t you, Stiles. I’m not scared of _you_ , I could never be scared of you. It’s more like I’m scared of my own mind, of coming to the realization that my nightmare is what’s real and that this is just another hallucination…”

Stiles tightens his hold on her at this, as if he could protect her from all evil as long as she’s there, within his reach, cocooned in his arms and his blankets.

“I think it was just a reaction to what I went through..not wanting anyone to touch me, that is. I haven’t felt any comforting touches in what feels like an eternity.” Lydia can feel Stiles softly stroking her arms and avoiding where he knows the bruises are, as if trying to amend that, trying to remind her body of what it’s like to be touched with care, with no intentions other than comfort. She doesn’t know how he could have committed the exact locations to memory so quickly, but she assumes the sight of them hurt him so much, made him feel so guilty, that his punishment was knowing exactly where the physical representations of her pain were.  

His hand is still stroking her hair in a calming motion, but she feels him pause where he knows the hole is, again. She knows that nothing hurts him more than that, the knowledge that she had to endure trepanation in Eichen and he couldn’t do anything to stop it, so it’s understandable that he seems to falter every time he comes near it.

Stiles looks at her and says, “It’s okay, Lydia, I understand. You don’t have to talk about any of it right now, you shouldn’t. Let’s change the subject. Or better yet, maybe you should try to sleep again? I could get you a higher dosage of Deaton’s concoction and hope that it’ll actually work long term this time?”

Lydia shakes her head. “I don’t want to sleep. Not only because I’m scared of falling into the same nightmare, but I also don’t feel very tired, the dreamless sleep that the concoction did bring was more than enough for the time being.”

She sees his face twist up in pain a little when she mentions her nightmare, but he composes himself. He looks unsure when he nods at her, though. “Okay… whatever makes you comfortable.”

Stiles kind of carefully lets go of her, disentangling himself, and moves over to give her some space, probably still unsure about how much physical contact she’s comfortable with. She wishes he hadn’t let go, but she also doesn’t want to become completely dependent on him to hold her together because he won’t always be there (and there’s the fact that he also has a girlfriend to consider, which is also probably making him feel guilty about the way they were practically on top of each other).

Lydia does her best to not convey her disappointment at the loss of contact and simply turns so that she’s facing him.  

“I need to apologize to the Sheriff. Not only am I intruding, but my screams of terror must be extremely inconvenient when he tries to sleep after his long shifts. I’m sorry, you can take me to my house now. I-I have to face her sooner or later.” (She also doesn’t know how Malia feels about this arrangement, but she doesn’t mention that)

“My dad’s not home.” There is unbelievable pain in his voice when he says this and she can see him visibly stiffen, which makes her immediately start to panic.

_Oh God, please no. Nothing bad could have happened to the Sheriff in these two weeks, right? She would have felt it if he…_

Lydia can’t help herself, her voice shakes when she asks, “What do you mean, Stiles? Where is he?”

She is starting to feel like she can’t breathe because Stiles isn’t answering, he’s staring straight ahead with a stony expression on his face, and she’s starting to think the worst, so she grabs his face down to force him to look at her.  

“Stiles, please, tell me what happened. Please don’t say….” Lydia can’t even finish the sentence because it’s inconceivable, she would never let those words leave her mouth. She can’t imagine a world where spastic, kind, loving, sarcastic Stiles is truly an orphan; a world where Beacon Hills loses its dedicated Sheriff, a man filled with the warmth of the universe, a man who has suffered so much and refused to succumb to the fire of despair because of his love for the boy she was just wrapped up in (and is, in every possible way).

Stiles’ mind seemed to have been somewhere else and the only thing that snapped him out of it was the panic and concern in her eyes when she forced him to look at her.

“He’s okay now, but still in the hospital. T-Theo attacked him the same day your mom told us you became catatonic. He was hanging on by a thread when I found him, h-he he almost didn’t make it.” His voice breaks at the end and Lydia feels it cut through her.

She sighs in relief at the confirmation that his father is alive and not...she can’t even _think_ the word.

Lydia closes the space between them _(so much for worrying about too much intimacy)_ and weakly wraps her arms around Stiles’ neck, ignoring the pain she feels when the bruises brush up against him. She whispers, “I’m so sorry, Stiles, I didn’t know..” into his chest.

She doesn’t expect him to hear her because the sound was kind of muffled by his shirt, but he does. “It’s okay, you couldn’t have known, you were catatonic.” He seemed to welcome the return of contact just as much as she did and she’s grateful for it.

Lydia can tell that he’s trying very hard not to cry, that the guilt is probably eating him up about this and he’s hiding it. Stiles isn’t the kind who particularly worries about appearing vulnerable in front of people like she does, especially not in front of her, since she’s seen him that way more often that she’d like, so she’s quite sure that he’s not keeping his tears at bay for that reason. He’s probably doing it for her sake, probably worried that making this about him would be belittling her trauma, and she loves him all the more for it.

The Sheriff is the most important person in Stiles' life, she can't even fathom what would become of him if he were to lose him, too, especially after all that they’ve been through together after Claudia passed away.

Lydia looks up at him and whispers, “It’s okay to cry, Stiles.”

Stiles smiles weakly at this as he sniffles. “I’ve done more than enough crying the past few weeks, it’s become borderline embarrassing.”

Lydia tries not to think of how many of those tears could have been because of her and her predicament, how Stiles has had to deal with not only his father almost dying, but also worrying about what was happening to her in Eichen and figuring out how to break her out without getting anyone in the pack killed. She tightens her hold on him instinctively as her insatiable need to protect him from pain surfaces, ignoring how much her arms seem to protest at the action.

Lydia sighs and pulls back to look at him. “Yes, but how often has someone been there to comfort you when you did?”

Stiles gives her an incredulous look. “Lydia, _you’re_ the one who just spent two weeks alone in a hellish place at the clutches of very sick people. The roles are very defined: _you’re_ the one who should need comforting and _I’m_ the one who should be doing the comforting.”

“And you’ve done beautifully, but you’ve been through a lot these past two weeks, too. The best thing about our...friendship is that we’ve always treated each other as equals, neither of us needs the other more or less than the other; like you say, we’re a team. So let me be as good of a teammate as you’ve been lately.”

Stiles softly kisses her hair in response and Lydia panics a little, wondering how badly her hair must smell after her time in Eichen, then immediately feels silly for worrying about something so petty (and besides, Melissa did say she ‘cleaned her up,’ so she hopes that involved washing her hair).  Lydia remembers that he did the same thing in the tunnels before Toby and Agatha showed up and realized that she should have worried about how it smelled  _then_ , not now. She blushes a little for getting so worked up over such a thing and hopes Stiles didn’t notice.

If he did notice, he made no indication of it. He simply whispers, “Thank you, Lydia,” as she sees his eyes brimming with tears, as if all they needed was permission to release all that they’ve been holding back.

Stiles starts openly crying, staring at his hands for some reason Lydia can’t understand, as she adopts the same soothing techniques he was using with her earlier. This isn’t the first time she’s seen him like this, looking so broken and small, but it still manages to break her heart every time. Being able to comfort him distracts her from her own current mental and emotional instability, giving her a sense of purpose that she hasn’t felt in so long that she resorted to actively seeking it out as she did with Parrish when she was so determined to help him discover what he was.

Stiles takes much less longer than she did to compose himself, she assumes that he’s still holding a lot back, but she’s glad he at least let _some_ of it out. He wipes at his eyes furiously, as if willing them to stop because they’ve had their time and don’t deserve any more. They both seem to shift away from each other at the same time, both worried about crossing some kind of boundary, and assume the previous positions of simply facing each other on the bed.

“Feel better?” she asks, softly.

“Yeah. Let’s talk about something else, to distract both of us.”

Lydia nods. “How has everyone else been? I’m really glad Kira’s back.”

“Yeah, I am, too. We couldn’t have done it without her.”

Lydia almost laughs at how he says “it” in an effort to avoid explicitly talking about their infiltration of Eichen to save her because of their decision to avoid that particular subject for the time being.

Stiles continues. “Deaton’s back in town, finally.” Lydia can sense bitterness in his tone and frankly, it’s understandable. The man skipped town at the worst possible time, leaving them to deal with those demon spawn Dread Doctors alone.

“That’s good, maybe he’ll be able to help with everything.”

He still looks resentful, but he tries to appear hopeful, for her. “Maybe.”

Out of nowhere, Lydia feels pain in her neck, again. It stopped hurting her a few days ago, maybe even a week ago. She doesn’t know what triggered it, maybe the mention of the Dread Doctors, but she remembers that she hasn’t told the pack something very important.

Lydia doesn’t want to relive what Theo did to her, of being catatonic for the first time, the feeling of being trapped inside her own mind and of barely being alive, but she has to tell Stiles what he did.

Only then does it register that Stiles said Theo is the one who almost killed the Sheriff and she suddenly feels a hatred towards him even stronger than the one she felt towards Toby, Agatha, and Valack because not only is he the reason why she was in Eichen, but he was also the reason why Stiles almost lost his only parent.

She must look alarmed because Stiles looks at her with concern. “Lydia? What is it? Does something hurt?” His eyes roam over her, probably searching for some drastic injury that he previously missed.

“I-I need to tell you why I was catatonic.”

“Oh. Are you sure? You don’t have to talk about it right now…”

“No, I have to, it’s important. The rest of the pack needs to know.”

“Okay..go ahead.”

“Theo...Theo, he sank his claws into my neck, to figure out where the nemeton was. I guess he knew that that’s where Parrish was taking the bodies. So he took me to it, threw me on the ground, and brought the dead chimeras back to life somehow. After that, I don’t remember being myself again until I was in Eichen for a few days. Valack made me tell him about it.” She winces when she thinks of Valack and all that he put her through.

Stiles’ face drains of color when he hears this, an expression of horror forming. “The dead chimeras…? Theo brought them back to life? All of them?”

“I’m not sure...I-I think so.” Lydia knows this is really, really bad news, but she can’t shake the feeling that Stiles’ reaction is loaded, that there’s more than just anger and fear about what this could mean for the pack.

Stiles sighs deeply and drags his hands over his face. “Fuck. Okay..okay, I’ll call a pack meeting tomorrow morning and let them know. We should probably tell Deaton, too. Thank you for telling me, I know it must have been hard for you to talk about it.”

“It’s fine, I had to.. Stiles, are you okay? I know that wasn’t great news, but you look extremely shaken.”

Stiles looks distracted, anxiety etched into his features. “Huh? I’m fine, Lydia, don’t worry about me.”

Lydia doesn’t look convinced, so Stiles adds “I just hate that bastard. Between what he did to you, my dad, and Scott…” He is visibly shaking and Lydia is getting really worried. _What does he mean what he did to Scott? How many traumatic events did she miss in these two weeks?_

“Stiles, what do you mean…? What did Theo do to Scott???”

“Fuck, I wasn’t supposed to mention that. That’s a long story, a tale for another day. Please don’t make me get into it now, I promise I’ll tell you soon. The important thing is that Scott is okay now, you’ve seen him yourself in the animal clinic when we took you before bringing you here. I’ll make sure he comes around to see you in the morning when you’re awake, so that you can ensure that I’m not lying to you.”

Lydia gives him a tired, yet hard look, willing him to give her some answers. “Stiles.”

“Lydia, please, don’t make me.” He is actually pleading, which really concerns her. She thinks of how she noticed awkwardness between Stiles and Scott when they were talking by the door of the room and she assumes that had something to do with this. Stiles is hiding something big from her, something that extends further than whatever Theo did to Scott.

Lydia sighs, she’ll let it go this time just because she feels so bad about what happened to the Sheriff that she doesn’t want him to have to relive yet another thing that has him so shaken up.

“Fine, but you better tell me soon.”

Stiles puts his guard up, clearly trying to avoid letting anything else that he’s not ready to talk about slip through the cracks. He smirks at her. “Look at you, regaining the domineering aspect of your personality so quickly.”

Lydia pouts as she smacks his arm. “It never left!”

“Of course, of course.”

Lydia looks out the window of Stiles’ room and sees darkness, which makes her realize that she has no concept of time since before she was taken to Eichen. 

“What time is it?”

Stiles looks down at the watch on his hand. “It’s 2 a.m.”

She looks down at her hands, with a sheepish expression on her face. “I’m sorry for waking you” she says softly. 

He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it, I’m glad you did. I wouldn’t want you dealing with that nightmare alone.” 

Lydia nods a little. Her entire body is suddenly starting to ache all at once and it’s becoming unbearable. This time, she really is in pain and Stiles becomes very alert.

“Are you in pain?”

“Yes, how did you know?” Lydia asks softly.

“I’m not sure, it just seems like it. I’ll go get you some painkillers from the bathroom.”

Lydia flinches at the mention of pills, remembering how Valack and the orderlies would shove some down her throat every day in dangerous doses, which probably contributed to the fabrication of the hallucinations.

Stiles saw her flinch, so he notices her discomfort and immediately worries that he did something senseless again. “What’s wrong? What did I do?”

“Pills...I-I can’t take pills, not so soon. Do you have any liquid medication?”

“Shit, I’m so sorry for even mentioning it, Lydia. Yeah, of course, Melissa brought some over this morning, just in case. I’ll go get it now.”

Lydia can see him facepalming as he walks towards the bathroom, chastising himself for suggesting such a thing. She squirms in the bed a little, the pain reaching a new high.

Stiles comes back quickly with a bottle, a spoon, and some water in his hands. He sits down gently next to her and puts down the water as he opens the medication and pours some onto the spoon as carefully as he can. Lydia is honestly surprised that his hands are capable of being so steady right now, that he isn’t spilling pink liquid all over the bed.

“Open up” he commands.

“Stiles, I’m a big girl now, I can hold my own spoon.”

“No need for the snark, Martin, just let me give you the damn medicine. I promise I won’t tell anyone that you allowed me to take care of you.”

Lydia rolls her eyes at him, but tries very hard not to smile to herself because she’s missed this easy banter that they’ve always had between them.

She finally relents, allowing him to pour the contents of the spoon into her mouth.  

“Thank you” she says softly, as she lays back against the pillows.

Stiles smiles weakly. “No problem.” He puts the bottle of medicine and the spoon on the bedside table and starts adjusting the blankets around her again.

“Anyway, you need to eat something! I’ll go fix something up quickly.”

Lydia looks unsure about this and Stiles laughs weakly. “Relax, Melissa and Kira dropped off many different kinds of soup, all I have to do is heat it up. I’ll have you know, though, I am an excellent cook!”

She snorts a little at this, muttering something like “Yeah, okay.”

Stiles feigns hurt as he puts his hand on his chest. “I am so offended! One day, I’m going to cook an entire meal for you and you will eat your words. Never doubt my many, many skills!”

Lydia laughs a little, which makes Stiles smile a victorious smile that lights up his whole face and warms her heart. She also feels all tingly at the thought of Stiles cooking her a meal and tries to not get worked up over the context in which that would happen. _Not the time, Lydia._

Stiles leaves the room and comes back ten minutes later with a steaming bowl in his hand on a tray. He sits down on the bed and sets the bowl down.

“Are you going to complain about me feeding you?”

Lydia considers this. “I’ll let it slide this time, just because my arms are sore, but if you tell a soul, I will end you.”

Stiles chuckles and says, “I have no doubts that you would,” as he reaches for the soup.

As he feeds her the soup, Lydia stares at his face, focusing on every feature and realizing that the hallucinations did not do him justice. His eyes were not this perfect shade of honey, his eyelashes were not as long as they are, his moles were not peppered like a constellation like this, they were scattered, but not in an appealing way that makes you want to connect the dots like this. His nose wasn’t so symmetrical and adorable, his jawline wasn’t so wonderfully chiseled and defined. Lydia stops there because she is not going to look at his lips right now, that is dangerous territory and he is bound to notice. Her face flushes red at the mere thought and she immediately looks down, but she wasn’t quick enough.

Stiles smirks at her, setting the bowl down on the table. “Is Lydia Martin blushing? Is that happening right now? Pinch me, this can’t be real!”

Lydia digs her nails into his arm, as she hides behind her hair. “Shut up, Stilinski.”

She expects him to pursue it further, to ask what she was thinking about that made her blush, but for whatever reason, he drops it.

They sit in comfortable silence for a while, Stiles lost in his thoughts, while Lydia waits for the medication to kick in and spread to the painful parts of her body.

Lydia doesn’t know how much time passes before she builds up the courage to ask something that has been in the back of her mind all day, effectively breaking the silence that they’ve been indulging in.

“Where’s Malia? I haven’t seen her at all.”

Stiles looks startled at the sudden question, at the break in his deep thoughts. “She hasn’t really been around since we got you out of Eichen...she, uh, she kind of broke up with me.” He scratches his neck, which Lydia has discovered is a nervous tic of his.

Lydia is so taken aback by his admission that she just blinks up at him, unsure of what to say. It’s so unexpected, both his declaration of it and the act itself, that she is genuinely surprised. Stiles is staring at her and she realizes that she hasn’t responded.

“Oh. I’m so sorry, Stiles, I didn’t mean to bring it up…Do you want to talk about it?”

Stiles shakes his head. He looks a little sad, but not heart broken. “No, no, it’s fine. We ended things on good terms, she still wants to be friends.”

Lydia doesn’t know why she suddenly feels so nervous. “That’s good, I’m still sorry that it happened, though. When?”

Stiles won’t meet her eye for some reason. “The night before we broke you out.”

“Oh.” _Well that’s an unusual time, what gives?_

“Yeah. Anyways, I really think you should try to sleep now, you’ve been up for a while. We’ve talked so much, you’re probably drained.”

Stiles is clearly deflecting, but she doesn't know why.

Nonetheless, Lydia nods slowly, she is starting to feel the exhaustion setting in, as the medication seems to be doing its job. “Okay.”

“Do you want me to go make you some not-so-dreamless-sleep-tea?”

Lydia suddenly looks very tired. “No, I’ll take my chances.”

Stiles looks at her sadly, probably hoping that the nightmares will have some mercy on her tonight.

“Okay, well, I’ll check on you throughout what's left of the night. Good night, Lydia.” He gives her hand a squeeze and starts to approach the door.

Lydia isn’t ready to be alone yet, though, she needs him here, so she calls out to him.

“Stiles, wait-” She says it so softly that she’s afraid he wouldn’t hear, but he does.  _His ears seem attuned to the sound of her voice._

He turns around quickly, a concerned look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” he asks worriedly.

“Can you stay?”

Stiles looks startled at this, clearly not expecting it. “A-are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Lydia suddenly feels very small, vulnerable even, feeling like she did when she was a little girl and would ask her father to stay by her side until she fell asleep. He used to smile and sit by her, stroking her hair until he heard her breathing even out. But at one point, he stopped smiling, he stopped agreeing to it; he would look at her dismissively and say, “You’re not a little girl anymore, Lydia. You can fall asleep without me there.”

After that, Lydia never asked him again. She forced herself to grow up and faced her nightmares alone, deciding never to be so weak in front of anyone ever again.

But Stiles is not her estranged father; he walks back to the bed and smiles at her as he pulls up his desk chair and puts it next to it.

This gives Lydia the courage to shake her head and say, “No, we can share. Your bed has proven big enough for the both of us.”

Once again, he asks, “Are you sure?”

Lydia should be annoyed by his repetitive uncertainty, but it’s actually touching that he’s so determined to ensure that she’s comfortable, that he’s not overstepping any boundaries.

She nods. “I’m not going to let you sleep on an uncomfortable chair.”

Stiles climbs into the bed gently. “Has the medication kicked in? Are you still in pain?”

Lydia mumbles, “Yes, and no. Pull the covers up, please.”

Stiles does as he’s told, but leaves a considerable distance between them.

Lydia takes a leap of faith and snuggles up to him, but positions herself in such a way that her bruises aren’t brushing up against anything.

She hears a sharp intake of breath, but Stiles soon relaxes, wrapping a protective arm around her waist and flinching at the feel of her prominent hipbone. Lydia isn’t offended, she can see that the expression on his face is of pain, not disgust. She touches his arm reassuringly and accidentally says, “Stay,” probably worried that he’ll move away from her.

Stiles leans down, kisses her forehead, and Lydia swears she can faintly hear him whisper, “Always,” before she drifts off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does that last part seem familiar to anyone? *wink wink* (Sorry for being unoriginal, I am such Everlark trash and it seemed like a sweet moment to add at the end).
> 
> I hope this chapter was a lot fluffier than the previous ones. I really enjoyed writing it, so I hope you enjoyed reading it! If you're still following this story, thank you so much, it means the world to me. As always, I absolutely adore any kind of feedback, so please let me know what you think! :))
> 
> If you have Tumblr, you can follow me at blossomingintheshadows.tumblr.com and come rant about Stydia with me!


	12. Maybe We Could Be the Start of Something

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott comes to talk to Lydia, Stiles and Scott make up, the rest of the pack comes to visit, and Stiles and Lydia confess their feelings for each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Done, done, done! This is the last chapter of this story, but never fear, it's a VERY long one! Enjoy the Stydia fluff! (I couldn't resist using another line from "Start of Time" for the title of this last chapter)

Lydia opens her eyes to the soft light streaming in through the curtains around Stiles’ bedroom window, which is a welcome change from what she's acclimated herself to lately. Throughout her stay in Eichen, she hated waking up to the sight of the excessively bright lights of her dull, prison-like room, which made her feel like she was on an operating table, waiting to be sliced open.

She looks around without moving and sees that she is practically on top of Stiles, snuggled up to him with her head tucked into the crook of his neck, her hand on his chest, where his heart is, and his arm wrapped protectively around her.

Lydia never imagined what Stiles would look like asleep, but she’s sure that, even if she had, it would never have been sufficient. She wishes she could memorize the sight of him right now, wishes that he would never have reason to lose the ease in which he lays next to her.

She allows herself the luxury of studying him in this peaceful state, without the lines of worry and stress that seemed to be permanently etched into his features. She frowns slightly at the prominent darkness beneath his eyes, making a mental note to ensure that he’s sleeping because she knows he hasn’t done much of that for the past few weeks.

She sighs at the sight of the rise and fall of his chest, proof of the life that courses through his veins, her heart aching at the thought of that hallucination of him dying. _God, she wishes there was a way for her to wipe that from her memory forever._

Lydia shakes her head, letting go of those dark thoughts. She’s grateful for this deep sleep that seems to have consumed him because there’s no explanation for what she’s doing right now other than admiring him with an unguarded expression on her face, one filled with warmth she didn’t think she was capable of. Her face is flushed, _goddammit, Lydia Martin does not blush_ , as she reaches over to trace the moles on his face. She never knew how much she wanted to do this until she’s actually doing it, lightly as if her fingers are feathers, praying that he doesn’t wake up because that would be extremely embarrassing and Lydia most definitely does _not_ do embarrassed.

Her whole body feels sore, but she ignores it because she doesn’t remember the last time she felt this safe, this peaceful. Only then does it register that she didn’t have _the_ nightmare last night, that she actually wasn’t plagued with terrors in her sleep for the first time in a very long time. She smiles at this realization, knowing that the boy beside her, whom she’s perfectly tucked into as if she were a puzzle piece that finally found its match, is the exact reason _why_ she had her first night of peaceful, soundless sleep in far too long.

Lydia reaches up to smooth his hair down, even though she knows it’s a lost cause because Stiles’ hair is pretty much eternally disheveled, but she allows herself this second stolen moment because _when did she start having this strong urge to run her hands through it??_

She’s worried that he’ll move away from her because he’s bound to wake up soon, so she decides that she might as well re-establish the boundaries herself. She’s already missing the contact, missing those secret, stolen moments of pure admiration for all that he is, before he even wakes up.

He doesn’t seem to to be waking up just yet, though, so she resumes her staring until she hears the sound of someone clearing their throat. Lydia looks up quickly to see that the intruder is none other than Scott, standing there with a smile that is dangerously close to being considered a smirk. She doesn’t know how long he’s been standing there or what he would think of what he saw, but she curses underneath her breath because she wasn’t quick enough to hide the evident redness that flooded her cheeks, with an expression of a deer caught in headlights. _You weren’t doing anything wrong. And besides, it’s just Scott._

Lydia composes herself quickly, as the relief of seeing him in front of her unharmed spreads through her. “Scott!”

The smirk that was accompanied by a very knowing look fades, turning into a smile of warmth and relief. “Hey, Lydia.”

She disentangles herself from Stiles as gently as she can, fumbling with the blankets around her as she attempts to get up.

“Be careful! Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Scott says, laughing a little to himself, as he meets her at the edge of the bed opposite from where Stiles is sleeping.

“How are you feeling?” he asks as he studies her, frowning at the prominent bruises that pepper her body. Lydia sees his mouth tighten into a line and his hands clench at his sides when his eyes settle on her head, his expression a combination of anger and  misery, looking as if he’s trying very hard to restrain himself from hugging her. Lydia is confused at first and a little hurt, but then she remembers the conversation she overheard between him, Stiles, and Melissa where Stiles told them about how uncomfortable she was with physical contact.

“I’m feeling better. Come here, you idiot.” He obliges and wraps her in a bear tug, trying to be as gentle as he can. He sits down on the bed across from her, a deep sadness creeping into his puppy dog eyes that tugs on Lydia’s heartstrings.

Scott whispers, “I’m so glad you’re okay,” and Lydia hears his voice crack a little.

“The feeling is mutual. I’m so relieved to see you...especially after what Stiles told me. Or rather, what he _didn’t_ tell me.” She lets a little bitterness slip into her voice at the end. Scott’s face is flooded with confusion, but Lydia doesn’t get to elaborate because Stiles decides to start groaning.

He starts rubbing his eyes as he says, “Did I hear someone say ‘idiot?’ You know, it’s rather rude to speak about people when they aren’t strictly present.”

Lydia is glad to see that he, too, looks flushed when he notices that Scott walked in on the two of them tangled up in each other in a strangely intimate way.

She feels Scott stiffen a little next to her and she starts wondering, not for the first time, what the hell happened between the two of them.

Lydia tries to diffuse the tension by responding to Stiles herself. “Not everything is about you, Stiles. Although, I do believe it’s very telling that you simply assume that that particular insult was directed towards you.”

Stiles feigns hurt and scoffs. “Goodmorning to you, too, Lydia.”

She sees him and Scott nodding in acknowledgment of each other’s presence and she decides that she has to find out what caused all this formality and awkwardness, no matter what.

Lydia turns to Scott and asks, “How’d you get in?”

Scott relaxes a little as he looks back to her and responds. “You really think that, after all this time, I don’t have a key to Stiles’ house?”

“Yeah, Lydia, do you know us at all?”

She rolls her eyes at both of them and at their futile attempts to hide the tension, sitting back against the bed in the process.

Stiles avoids Scott’s eyes by looking at Lydia as he says, “See, I told you he was fine.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t share _why_ there was reason for him _not_ to be fine.”

Stiles is spared from responding by the sound of his phone ringing. He fumbles around the nightstand until he gets a hold of it and excuses himself.

Lydia immediately turns to Scott, ready to bombard him with questions and force him to talk. She knows she’ll have more success getting information out of Scott than she would have with Stiles.

Scott is about to open his mouth to speak when Stiles comes rushing back into the room, a bright smile on his face.

“That was my dad, he says Melissa says that he can be discharged tomorrow!”

Lydia’s head snaps to the door and she feels relief flood through her body for the second time in the last five minutes. Scott seems unharmed and the Sheriff is being discharged and she’s so, so grateful.

“Oh, thank God! I’m so glad he’s okay!”

She sees Scott smile as he says, “That’s great. Stiles. I’m really happy for you, man. I’m glad he’s finally getting out of there.” His smile seems genuine and Lydia hopes that Stiles can see that, too.

He smiles back at both of them, a spark of excitement in his eyes that Lydia hasn’t seen in awhile. “Thanks, guys, I’m heading there now!” Then, he faces Scott when he asks, “Will you be okay to stay with Lydia until I get back?”

“Yeah, of course. Kira and Malia said they would stop by later to come see Lydia, too, so don’t worry.”

Lydia looks at Stiles to see if he would react to the mention of Malia, but she sees no indication of hurt or discomfort. He simply returns to the bed to squeeze her hand, saying his goodbyes in the process and promising that he won’t be long.

Once they hear the front door shut, Lydia faces Scott and senses a nervous energy surrounding him. _He must know that she’s going to question him. Good, let him be prepared._

Lydia wastes no time, she jumps right in. “Scott, please tell me what happened. Stiles told me that Theo almost killed the Sheriff and that he did something to you, too, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was and seemed very adamant to keep it from me. He said it was a long story and begged me to let it go for the time being. I hate feeling out of the loop and I’ve been feeling that way for quite some time now. And you and Stiles can barely even look at each other! What is that about? What could possibly have happened to cause all of this? Please, just tell me. I’m part of this pack, too, I deserve to know what happens to you guys while I’m holed up in a mental institute!”

She sees Scott wince a little at her tone and realizes that her words must have been a bit cutting, but frankly, she doesn’t feel too bad because she has felt really left out lately.

“Lydia, I’m so sorry that you felt that way. I-I had no idea...and I don’t think Stiles did, either. We’ve been beating ourselves up over what happened to you since we found out, no one more than Stiles, of course. And it killed us to leave you there for so long, not knowing what was happening to you... I’m only going to speak for myself when I say that I haven’t been the best friend to you lately and that I’m truly sorry for that, you deserved better. I’ve been so caught up with so many things….I know you must have felt neglected, but maybe you’ll be a bit more forgiving when you find out everything that happened.” He has such a haunted look in his eyes that Lydia has to look down at her hands to escape it because it hurts to look at.

“It’s okay, Scott. Just please tell me everything so I can understand,” she says softly in response.

Scott sighs and finally relents. He starts by telling her about Theo confiding in him about how Stiles apparently brutally murdered Donovan. Lydia already feels overwhelmed by this first piece of information, her heart beating extremely fast and her eyes staring at Scott in horror and disbelief. _No, Stiles would never do that. This is_ **_Stiles_ ** _they’re talking about, the guy who was prepared to kill himself to stop the nogitsune from continuing its reign of terror. Skinny, kind, gentle Stiles, who loves more fiercely than anyone she’s ever known. The guy who begged Peter to kill him instead of her on the lacrosse field, to spare her, and let her live with the idea that it was Jackson who saved her, not him.  No. This is impossible. Stiles isn’t a murderer, he’s the only light in all the darkness in her life._ She’s about to interrupt Scott, to tell him that Theo’s a liar, that it can’t be true, but he doesn’t pause, he simply looks down at his hands and continues to speak.

Next, Scott recounts the night in the rain, when he confronted Stiles about what Theo told him, holding the wrench up as proof. Lydia can tell that this is the first time he tells someone what happened by how his voice trembles, she can tell that it’s hurting him to simply remember. She starts tearing up as he tells her what conspired between him and Stiles, her heart breaking at the mere thought that a bond as seemingly indestructible as theirs could be broken by a few words. Scott tells her how Stiles was begging him to believe him and how he responded by taking a step back, as if in fear of him. Lydia winces at this, imagining how much that must have hurt Stiles. Scott drags his hand over his face as he takes in a deep breath when he concludes his recollection of the confrontation. But no, Lydia still doesn’t believe it, _there has to be some kind of misunderstanding._

“Scott - you can’t say that you believe it. Please, tell me you don’t.”

She assumes that his silence means that he does, that he just doesn’t want to admit it to her.

“Scott, this is _Stiles._ I’m not going to tell _you_ of all people what that means. He would never do that. Theo is either lying or there’s some kind of misunderstanding. From what you told me, you guys didn’t really give each other the chance to provide the two sides of the story.”

Scott looks up at her, a war of emotions in his expression. “Lydia, I-I don’t know what to think. Stiles didn’t deny it....but after everything Theo did, I don’t know if I can trust what he says. I don’t know what to believe.” He says the last sentence helplessly and it hurts her to hear.

Stiles and Scott are closer than blood brothers are; Lydia was always envious of the bond they shared until Allison came along, but now she’s gone. No wonder both of them have seemed so lost, as if a part of them was missing. She realizes that that’s just it: Stiles wouldn’t be Stiles without Scott, just as Scott wouldn’t be Scott without Stiles; they complete each other. If she believed in soulmates, she would say that they are the equivalent of that, but in a platonic sense. She decides then that she will do everything in her power to fix things between them because she would truly lose all faith in the goodness of the world if the love shared between these two was lost forever.

Lydia grabs Scott’s shoulders gently. “I firmly believe that this is all a matter of miscommunication. When Stiles comes back, the two of you are going to talk, and that’s an order. I won’t let this destroy your friendship, I can’t bear it.”

Scott gives her a sad smile and nods.

Lydia tells him to continue telling her what happened and he obliges. He goes on to tell her about Hayden’s condition, how she was dying, how Liam demanded that Scott give her the bite to save her, and his anger when he refused. Scott recounts how Liam nearly killed him, his rage fueled by his fear of losing his first love and heightened by the power of the Supermoon. Lydia gasps and grabs Scott’s hand, disbelief coloring her features. He pats her hand with his own as he reassures her that Mason came in time to stop Liam, to anchor him, to relay the news of Hayden’s death. Scott starts tearing up at the mention of Hayden’s death and now it’s Lydia’s turn to reassure him.

“She’s not dead, Scott. Hayden’s not dead,” she says softly.

Scott looks at her in both confusion and disbelief. “W-what? What do you mean she’s not dead?”

“She’s alive, I told Stiles last night. I’ll tell you how she’s alive later, when you’re done telling me everything. I just wanted you to know, to give you some consolation.”

Scott nods, a dazed expression on his face.

Just then, Lydia and Scott are startled by the sound of someone walking into the room. They look up to see Stiles approaching them with a puzzled expression. He sits down on the bed in front of her, leaving a considerable amount of space between him and Scott.

“Back so soon?” Lydia asks.

“Yeah, my dad seems a lot better and he told me there’s no point in me staying there with him. He’s annoyed that he has to stay there one more day, but I told him to suck it up. I finally told him about you being in Eichen and he told me to leave, that you needed me more than he did right now. And besides, he has Melissa.” He said the last part with a little smirk on his face that mirrored the one on Scott’s face and Lydia was left confused, as if there was some kind of inside joke that she didn’t understand.

“Oh, you hadn’t told him yet? Or that I’ve been invading his home for the past few days?”

“No, I didn’t want to worry him more than he was already worried.”

“That was probably the right call,” Scott says softly.

Stiles looked satisfied at this declaration and turned back to Lydia. “And for your information, when I told him what happened, he said you’re welcome to stay for as long as you need.”

Lydia felt very touched by this; the Stilinski men give her more kindness than she deserves.

“That’s very sweet of him,” Lydia says, her voice full of emotion.

Stiles gives her a small smile, then clears his throat. “Sorry to barge in like I did, you guys seemed to be deep in conversation, I shouldn’t have interrupted…”

“Scott was just filling me in about all the horrible things that happened while I was gone.”

Stiles’ head snaps up at this, his face contorting in pain, as the anxiety seems to come off of him in waves. _He’s probably worried about Scott telling her about Donovan, and what she would think of him. But if he expected to find disappointment and disgust in her expression, he wouldn’t._

Scott cuts in. “I was just getting to the point about what Theo did to me the same night he attacked the Sheriff. I told you the general idea of what happened, Stiles, but not the details. You’re free to listen.”

“Oh. _That_.”

Lydia looks at Stiles and sees a torment in the pools of honey that are his eyes and sees that it’s directed towards Scott. _Fuck, this seems really serious._

Both Scott’s voice and his hands start shaking when he tells Lydia and Stiles about what happened between him and Theo in the library, how Theo came to finish the job after Liam and Mason left. He tells them that Theo killed him, that he was planning to all along, in order to take the pack. Lydia gasps again, her hand flying to cover her mouth in horror. Stiles stays silent, but his expression is an open book; a combination of unbridled anger and sadness.

Lydia’s eyes fill with tears. “But - how -”

Scott squeezes her hand. “I’m obviously alive, aren’t I? I was dead for a short while, but my mom revived me.” He gives her a weak smile.

In that moment, Scott’s lifeless face in her nightmare flashes before her eyes and it takes her breath away.  

“Oh my God, Scott!” She grabs him and hugs him, needing to be reassured that he’s really there, alive and well.

Scott returns the embrace, a few tears escaping from his eyes as he pats her back gently.

“It’s okay, Lydia. I’m fine.”

She releases him and sits back, looking at both of them. “I felt it. I was in the library earlier that day with Theo. I told him that someone was going to die there and it didn’t seem to be news to him. Then he slapped me -”

Stiles breaks his silence by yelling “HE WHAT?”

“Stiles, I tell you that he sank his claws into my neck, which made me catatonic, and the thing you’re outraged about is that he slapped me?”

“Well, of course I’m angry about that, too! But he slapped you, Lydia. How fucking dare he?!”

Scott looks alarmed. “Lydia, you didn’t tell me about Theo being the reason why you were catatonic!”

“I was going to, it’s tied to how Hayden is alive.”

Stiles face-palms. “Shit, I forgot to tell you to call a pack meeting about that.”

Lydia recounts the experience to Scott and she’s surprised to realize that it doesn’t shake her up as much as it did the first time she told it. When she’s done, she sees Stiles and Scott sharing a meaningful look.

She bites her lip and startles them both with her voice. “I think I know what you’re both thinking...I - I don’t know if he brought Donovan back. I know I saw Hayden, but I don’t know if he brought back all of the dead chimeras or only a few.”

Lydia sees Stiles’ expression darken as he stares down intently at his shaking hands. If he needed any confirmation that Scott told her about Donovan, this was it. Scott doesn’t seem to know what to say in response and Lydia feels the weight of their fight hanging in the air between them.

“Well, I am in dire need of a shower.”

Both Stiles and Scott look a bit alarmed at the prospect of her taking a shower and Lydia has to stifle a laugh.

They both look worried, but Scott is the one to speak up. “Are you sure you’ll be okay, Lydia? I could call Kira or my mom to come help you-”

Lydia pats his arm in response. “I’ll be fine. I’m feeling a lot better. This is the perfect opportunity for the two of you to talk and clear the air because I can’t stand seeing you looking at each other with such wounded expressions anymore. Talk.” She gives them both a hard look for good measure, challenging them to make up excuses. She knows she must not look very menacing, with the dark circles under her eyes, the bruises, and wearing Stiles’ too big clothes, but it seems to work because neither of them complains.

Scott gets up. “I almost forgot! Kira gave me some clothes to give you, hopefully they’ll fit.”

He pulls them out of his backpack and hands them to Lydia. She accepts them and thanks him, pausing outside the door of Stiles’ room to ensure that they’re speaking before she makes her way to the bathroom.

She sets the clothes down and gets excited when she realizes that Kira included a razor with them. She knows it’s silly to get worked up over such a little thing, but she has this idea that if she can smooth out her skin, she’ll feel more at home in it, as if she’s reclaiming the body she had before her horrid experience in Eichen. _God bless you, Kira._

Lydia undresses and cringes at the sight of her naked body in the mirror. She can tell that she lost weight over the past few weeks and it doesn’t bring her the satisfaction that it used to. She doesn’t dwell on that too much, that’s easily amendable, and instead, focuses on her injuries. The gash near her hip where Tracy attacked her is a red, ugly, vicious mark, healing much slower than she would like. The bruises on her arms and neck aren’t as prominent as they were a few days ago, when she was still in Eichen, but they’re still sore to the touch. She looks at the side of her head, the proof of the demented actions of Valack, and feels a rush of anger. She touches it gingerly and finds, to her surprise, that it doesn’t really hurt. _She survived it, but at what cost? What did he mean when he said he would be “amplifying her abilities?”_ She gets a flashback of that white energy that she emitted in the tunnels to save Stiles from Toby and Agatha. Lydia’s still not sure that that was even real, _but how else did they escape? If it was real, how does she trigger that power? Can she maintain it, or will it be out of control?_ She has so many questions that she has no way of answering, so she shakes her head and gets in the shower.

Lydia allows the hot water to consume her, flinching a little every time she feels her bruises burning under it. She starts feeling really overwhelmed, as if she’s going to have another breakdown right there, in the shower. _I can’t even take a goddamn shower without crying, what the fuck is wrong with me?_ She tries to push away any negative thoughts, focusing on cleansing herself, imagining that the water is washing away all of her worries and fears. Lydia scrubs at her skin, hoping to rid every part of her body of the memory of Eichen, of Valack and the orderlies’ harsh treatment of it.

She takes her time, finding solace and peace in being alone somewhere safe for a little while. Once she feels that there’s nothing more that she can do and the water starts running cold, Lydia gets out of the shower and reaches for Kira’s clothes. What she finds brings her back to a night at the ice skating rink; her and Stiles’ first and only “double date” with Scott and Allison. He offered her an orange sweater when she was wearing blue and she looked at him with disdain as she declared that orange and blue aren’t a good combination. Stiles responded by saying, “Sometimes there's other things you wouldn't think would be a good combination end up turning out to be a perfect combination. You know, like two people together who nobody ever thought would be together...ever.” Lydia pretended to think he was referring to Scott and Allison at the time, but she knew he meant them, she was just too shallow to even entertain the thought. _I think I know what you mean now, Stiles; except, I’m pretty sure everyone we know expects it now._ She laughs a little and smiles to herself as she puts on Kira’s blue pajama shorts and plain orange long sleeve shirt.

Lydia takes in a few deep breaths before she exits the bathroom, hoping that Scott and Stiles really did talk while she was in the shower. She knows that she needs to talk to Stiles about Donovan, alone, to hear his side of the story, but it’ll have to be later.

She approaches the bedroom slowly and isn’t able to stop herself from standing to the right of the door to peek in and see what’s going on. Lydia pokes her head in, as discreetly as possible, her heart throbbing at the sight of the two of them, hugging each other and crying. She hides back against the wall and smiles. _Thank God, I hope that means they fixed things._

She gives them a minute, and is about to go into the room, when she hears Scott say, “Malia told me about your breakup, I’m really sorry, Stiles.”

Lydia knows she should just go in, that it’s rude to eavesdrop, but she can’t help herself; she needs to hear Stiles’ response.

“Yeah, she broke up with me the night before we broke into Eichen…”

Lydia pokes her head back in and is grateful that both of them seem to be turned away from her.

“Did she tell you why?” Scott asks, looking as if he already knows the answer. _What is that about?_

“She, um, she just said she realized some things that she’s been trying to ignore...She saw how I was out of my mind worrying about Lydia and it apparently proved that she couldn’t ignore it anymore.”

“What’s ‘it,’ Stiles?”

Stiles stays silent, so Scott decides to push him further. “Remember when you, Lydia, Kira, and I went to Eichen a few weeks ago?”

Stiles flinches at the mention of Eichen and looks confused as he says, “Yeah...why?

“Well, when you two were past the mountain ash barrier, Kira asked me if you still like Lydia.”

Lydia sucks in a breath, her heart hammering with the weight of the conversation. Her mind screams at her, telling her to either walk in or go downstairs, to flee, to get away, but for some reason, her feet stay firmly grounded where she is.

Stiles swallows, suddenly looking very uncomfortable. “Oh. What did you tell her?”

“I told her that you still do, but that it’s different now. You thought you were in love with Lydia before, but you weren’t really, you were in love with the _idea_ of her. She was this beautiful, popular girl, who you put on a pedestal without really even knowing her. It’s true that you were the only one who knew that she’s pretty much a genius, but you didn’t _really_ know her like you know her now. That’s how it’s different now, you know Lydia more than anyone knows her and you care about her for who she really is. ”

Stiles gapes at Scott, clearly not expecting all of _that._ He composes himself quickly though, shaking his head as he says, “Yeah, well, it doesn’t matter anyway. She doesn’t feel the same.”

Scott starts shaking his head, opening his mouth to say something, but that’s when Lydia decides to come stumbling into the room.

“Well, isn’t this a sight for sore eyes.” She sighs at the sight of them sitting next to each other, talking animatedly as if nothing ever happened between them.

Scott smiles at her, but Stiles just stares at her as he croaks, “Orange and blue.”

Lydia flushes a little, not expecting him to remember the conversation as she did, but glad that he did.

“You know, the combination is growing on me. But that might just be because I can make any combination of two colors look good.”

Scott looks confused, clearly missing the point, but Stiles is smiling warmly at her and it’s melting her heart.

She moves to sit by them and then the doorbell rings. Stiles goes to see who it is and comes back with Kira, Malia, Liam, and Mason.

Kira rushes over to Lydia and hugs her. “Hey, Lydia! How are you feeling?”

Lydia is momentarily surprised by the open affection, but she welcomes it as she returns Kira’s embrace. “I’m feeling better, thank you.”

“Malia and I wanted to come see you right away, but Scott told me to hold off to give you some space.”

“That’s okay, I’m very grateful to both of you for what you did for me. Thank you.” She smiles up at Kira and Malia.

Kira flushes, but Malia is the one to respond. “Don’t worry about it, we were all worried about you. I’m glad you’re okay.” Her words seem genuine and she actually smiles at Lydia, causing her to feel a rush of affection for the werecoyote who doesn’t seem to hate her, even though it seems like she was the reason for her breakup with Stiles.

Liam and Mason are standing towards the back of the room; Liam is avoiding Scott’s eyes, an expression of shame and sadness all over his face and Mason just seems like he doesn’t think he belongs there.

Lydia feels bad for the two younger members of the pack, so she calls out to them. “Hey, Liam, Mason, how are you guys?”

Liam seems nervous and reluctant to approach her at first, Scott won’t look at him and Stiles is glaring, but Lydia reassures him with a weak smile. He moves towards her with Mason in tow, saying, “I’m so sorry that this happened to you, Lydia, we didn’t know until last night.”

“That’s okay, I’m honestly grateful that you didn’t know beforehand. I wouldn’t have wanted you and Mason risking yourselves in Eichen just to get me out. I suspect that’s why Scott and Stiles didn’t tell you?” She looks up to them for confirmation and they both nod.

Mason moves to hug her gently and tells her that he’s glad she’s okay. Liam follows suit and Lydia whispers, “She’s alive. Hayden’s alive,” to him before he lets go. He gasps, an expression of disbelief and hope on his face that breaks Lydia’s heart. _If anyone deserves a second chance to be with his first love, it’s Liam._

He turns to Stiles because he still can’t face Scott. “Is it true? Hayden’s alive????”

Kira and Malia gasp simultaneously and Mason looks stricken.

To Lydia’s surprise, Scott is the one who answers. He looks directly at Liam as he says, “It’s true. I’ll tell you guys all about it at tomorrow’s pack meeting. We need to figure out what we’re going to do about Theo and the Dread Doctors. And my mom told me that there have been a lot of murders lately, the first of them being those we saw at the hospital on gurneys, looking like they’ve been mauled by something.” He takes a breath and sighs. “I don’t know if it has to do with Theo and the Doctors or if it’s something else, something worse, but we’ll figure it out. For now, I think we should call it a night and let Lydia rest.”

They all mutter in agreement, saying their goodbyes and filing out of the door until only Scott and Stiles are left in the room with Lydia. Scott whispers something to Stiles that Lydia doesn’t catch and comes to hug her goodbye.

“Thanks for listening today, Lydia. I hope you’re not still mad at me?” He looks at her with those puppy dog eyes and any resolve she once thought she had crumbles.

“I can’t stay mad at you when you look at me like that, you idiot. I’m glad you and Stiles worked things out.” Scott laughs and turns to smile at Stiles and Stiles returns it, warming Lydia’s heart. _Her boys are finally okay again, thank God._

Once Scott leaves, Stiles brings up some food for the two of them and they eat in comfortable silence.

Lydia breaks the silence once she’s had her fill. “So, Scott told me about Theo’s side of the Donovan story, I want to hear yours.”

Stiles gulps, an anxious expression on his face. Lydia is momentarily worried that he’ll try to deflect, but he relents. He tells her everything, his voice shaking throughout most of it and his eyes filling with tears.

Once he’s done, Lydia asks,  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Stiles’ face twists up in shame and sadness. “I didn’t tell anyone, Lydia. I couldn’t bear to have the people I care about most looking at me like I was a monster, the way Scott looked at me when he confronted me about it.”

“But that was because of Theo’s distorted version of the story, he made Scott believe what wasn’t true. It was all miscommunication.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that it was murder. I told myself that my punishment would be losing my best friend, losing Scott, and I thought I deserved it. I don’t think he will ever fully forgive me, he’s such a good person…” He looks down, avoiding her gaze.  

Lydia grabs Stiles’ trembling hand. “So are you, Stiles. It wasn’t murder, it was self-defense. And I really don’t think Scott will hold it against you, he loves you too much to let anything come between you guys. I didn’t believe it when he told me, I told him that Theo was lying, that there had to be some kind of misunderstanding.”

He looks up at her with such a hopeful expression that it breaks her heart. “Really?”

Lydia gives him a weak smile and nods. He strokes her hand as he says, “Thank you, that means a lot to me, Lydia.”

She looks at his shoulder, hesitates at first, but decides to ask anyway. “Can I see the scar?”

Stiles looks confused, but the realization soon dawns on his face. “Oh, um, are you sure? It’s pretty gross.”

Lydia nods slightly in response.

Stiles pulls his shirt over his head and Lydia has to force herself to focus on his shoulder because _holy shit, he’s not as lanky as he used to be_. He blushes under her gaze and she tries to hide her smile, but fails miserably.

She touches the mouth-shaped scar gingerly, tracing it gently with her finger.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Not really, it’s been a while.”

Lydia tries to lighten the mood by smugly saying, “I was right.”

“What do you mean? What were you right about this time?”

“Before we went to Eichen with Kira and Scott, I noticed that you winced when you put your sweater on, when the fabric touched your shoulder, but you lied and said you had a ‘bad elbow.”

Stiles looks at her sheepishly. “Oh yeah, well aren’t you an observant little genius?”

“That I am.” Lydia is still absent-mindedly stroking the mark when she says, “I guess we’ll both have our share of scars by the end of high school, since we’re the only ones who don’t have supernatural healing powers.”

Stiles is staring at her so intently that she drops her hand and forces her gaze downward. “Thank you for showing me.” Lydia doesn’t know why she wanted to see it so badly, maybe to assure herself that scars aren’t something to be ashamed of or disgusted by, that they’re reminders of what they’ve endured; the battles they’ve lost, but lived through.

He smiles as he puts his shirt back on. “Anyway, how are you feeling? Did you sleep well?”

“Unusually well, actually. I didn’t have _the_ nightmare, or any nightmare, for that matter.”

Stiles looks at her in relief. “Really? No nightmares at all? That’s weird, why do you think that is?”

Lydia flushes a little. “I’m not sure, really.” _Liar, you know precisely why._ “I think this is just the first time in awhile that I felt safe and at peace when I slept, so I guess it was just having you here that did it.”

Stiles’ face softens, a look of absolute vulnerability and joy on his face that makes Lydia smile, despite herself.

“I-I’m glad that I was helpful, I hated seeing you so miserable every time you woke up,” he says softly.

“You’ve been more than just helpful, Stiles, you brought me back.”

Stiles looks puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“You pulled me out of the catatonic state with your voice; I heard what you said and it brought me back.”

His face brightens at this declaration. “Really? So the emotional tether thing worked? Deaton wasn’t just talking out of his ass?”

“I guess it did. I didn’t think it would be brought up again since the...sacrifice.”

Stiles gulps and nervously says, “He, um, he said that our tether was especially strong for some reason.”

“That’s good to know,” she says, with a smirk, trying to conceal the strong effect that that information had on her.

Stiles smiles a little, but it fades once his eyes settle on the side of her head. “Lydia, I know you might not be ready to talk about what happened in Eichen, but your head-” His voice fails at the end. She can tell that it’s been bothering him since he first found her in that godforsaken place, the anger evident on his face every time his gaze lands on it. She knows that he’s been itching to ask her about it, but has been holding back out of fear of making her uncomfortable.

Lydia tries to steady her breathing enough to speak. She realizes that Stiles is still holding her hand and is playing with her fingers, probably trying to distract himself in order to control his anger. “Like I told you, Valack did it. I don’t remember the procedure itself, I think I blacked out right before it started...I woke up and found blood on the pillow and made the connection. He said - he said he did it to ‘amplify my abilities,’ whatever that means.”

Stiles reaches for her and hugs her gently, grounding her as he always does.

He pulls back, dragging his hand over his face. “I can’t believe he had the audacity - the risk - ugh, that bastard! But I think we got a glimpse of what he meant by amplifying your abilities...what you did in the tunnels when that orderly was going to tase me, it was awesome.” He tries to give her a reassuring smile, but she can tell that he’s worried.

“I didn’t even know if that was real, but I guess I know now that it was. I did it once in the first hallucination I had, so I wasn’t sure...I don’t know anything about this new power, I don’t know what it could do to me, if it’s dangerous..”

“It was real and I never got to thank you for it. You saved my life, Lydia, even though you weren’t in any state to be saving anyone.” He looks at her in awe, as if she’s some kind of warrior princess that saved him from an untimely death.

She smiles weakly at him as he says, “We’ll figure it out, together, like we always do.”

Lydia whispers, “That sounds nice,” remembering how he told her that he’s never been able to get anything done without her, how they’re a team. She remembers a time when she told him that he was the one who always figured it out, trying to give him confidence when the nogitsune’s influence on his mind rendered him incapable of reading and her ankle was stuck in a bear trap that could only be opened by following the instructions. _The two of them do make a pretty good team,_ she thinks longingly.

“Lydia, you’re shivering, are you cold?” She didn’t even notice until he brings it up, lost in her own thoughts as she was.

“Yeah, I am,” she says softly, suddenly feeling strangely exposed in Kira’s short shorts.

Stiles fumbles to get off the bed, reaches his closet, and comes back with his lacrosse hoodie, “Stilinski” written on the back above the number 24.

“This will probably be huge on you, but it’ll keep you warm.” He sounds nervous when he hands it to her, probably worrying that she might not want to wear his clothes now that she has a choice in the matter, especially something as personal as his lacrosse hoodie. There’s something intimate about it, giving Lydia a spark of nervous excitement as she accepts it and pulls it on, feeling like this is some monumental moment in their relationship.

For some reason, this gives her the courage to say what she says next. “I heard you and Scott talking earlier…” She doesn’t even try to look sorry for eavesdropping, but she’s nervous nonetheless.

Stiles freezes and his face pales, tripping over air as he fumbles to sit back onto the bed. “Wh-what do you mean? Which part?”

Lydia just stares at him, hoping that he gets the point.

“Oh. That part.” His whole face reddens as he tries to avoid her eyes.

“Is it true?” she asks, softly.

Stiles looks back up to her, a bit startled. “Lydia, I don’t think this is the time…”

She gives him a stubborn look that has a hint of vulnerability in it as she persists. “Is it true, Stiles?”

“Why did Valack make you hallucinate me?”

Lydia pauses. _What the fuck? Where did this come from?_ “What? What are you talking about? Stiles - I asked you something first and it’s common courtesy to respond before asking a question of your own.”

“Please just tell me, Lydia. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head ever since you told me that you watched me die in a hallucination, that you screamed for me. And those two psychotic orderlies were taunting you about saying my name in your sleep and screaming.” He sighs tiredly. “I just - I just don’t understand why it would be _me_ of all people and why it would affect you so much.” He looks at her pleadingly, as if her response could make or break him.

Lydia sighs. _He still doesn’t realize how much she cares about him, how terrified she is of losing him._ But she doesn’t blame him, shes not exacty blatant with her feelings. 

“Like Toby said, Valack was listing my friends, asking me what happened to them, and when he said your name, I apparently reacted more than I did to any of the others’ names. I had hallucinations about pretty much everyone, even Aiden and Allison, and I was starting to wonder why I wasn’t hallucinating you until I realized that they were saving the best for last. In all of the other hallucinations with other people, I would just try to escape and the person would show up at the last minute and stop me. But in y-your hallucination, you died. I watched you die and I screamed for you, just like I screamed for Allison the day she died. I guess Valack saw how much I cared about you and assumed that he could get the most emotional response out of me by using you against me. He probably thought I would be more receptive to treatment if I thought you were dead and me saying your name in my sleep probably confirmed that.”

Stiles looks speechless, staring at her with a mixture of sadness and warmth.

“I’m so sorry, Lydia. I can’t imagine how that must have been. I’ll never forgive myself for leaving you there as long as I did.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Stiles. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“I - I just didn’t realize I meant that much to you.”

She reaches for him, wrapping her arms around him, craving his closeness. “Well, then you’re not as intelligent as I thought.”

Stiles laughs. Lydia whispers, “Is it true? Do you still-”

He cuts her off as he pulls back and says, breathlessly, “Yes, Lydia, it’s true. I do. Scott knows me a little too well.”

Lydia flushes, her whole body tingling as a warmth spreads through her.

“But I thought - Malia -”

Stiles sighs. “I tried, Lydia, I tried to get over you. And at some point, I almost convinced myself that I did. I threw myself into my relationship with Malia; she needed someone to help her adjust to human life, so I finally felt useful, even without having any supernatural powers. Don’t get me wrong, I care about her, of course I do, but I just always felt like something was missing.. I told myself that it was good for me, though; a relationship with someone who I didn’t directly harm when I was possessed by the nogitsune. I couldn’t believe that someone as beautiful and strong as Malia could actually want _me_ , that she actually liked me and wanted to be with me, so I got caught up in it and grew to genuinely care about her. I never blamed you for not reciprocating my feelings, Lydia; like Scott said, I was just a kid with a crush on the girl I put on a pedestal, a girl I didn’t really even know. But when I started to get to know you, the real you, I felt it growing, becoming something else, something stronger, and when you kissed me in the locker room to stop my panic attack, I knew I was a goner. But we never talked about it, so I assumed it was nothing more than a panicked attempt at calming me down. And soon, you had Aiden, and then Allison passed away and I felt like it was my fault, so I decided that it was doomed and tried to move on. I was happy with Malia and I thought I really was over you, but then I saw you lying on the floor of the police station, bleeding out, and I felt like the world stopped spinning, like time stopped. All I saw was the blood and I felt the life go out of me at the thought that I could lose you forever. Remember when I told you that I would go out of my mind if you died? Seeing you on the floor that night is when I realized the true meaning of those words, that’s when I knew that losing you would truly destroy me beyond repair. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, all I could do was stand there and stare at you, terrified that if I moved, time would start moving again and you would breathe your last breath. I beat myself up over it later, hating myself for not rushing to your side to help, for allowing someone like Theo to do so, instead. Scott was calling my name, but the sound was muffled, as if I wasn’t really hearing it, but for some reason, I could hear _your_ voice clearly when you told me to go. I was on the verge of a panic attack, but this time, you stopped it before it even happened. You smiled through the pain and told me to go, to help Tracy and Malia, and that was the only thing that snapped me out of it. That’s when I knew, Lydia, that’s when I knew that I wasn’t over you, that I could never be truly over you.”

Lydia doesn’t know how she’s still alive because she’s quite sure she hasn’t breathed since he started talking and her heart feels like it’s going to burst out of her chest.

She’s speechless and Stiles takes her silence negatively. He shifts uncomfortably, worried that he said too much, that he overwhelmed her when she’s still recovering from her experience at Eichen.

“Lydia, I-”

She cuts him off with a sudden movement; she climbs into his lap and presses her lips to his lightly.

Stiles is frozen in shock at first, but his lips seem to act of their own accord, responding in kind.

It's one soft kiss that doesn't last long, but Lydia thinks it's perfect.

Stiles looks at her like she's the sun and he's been deprived of warmth for years. “You’re really going to have to pinch me to convince me that that was real.”

“Aaaaand, the moment is ruined.”

“No, no, no, I’m sorry. Let’s pretend I didn’t open my mouth. Moment unruined.”

Lydia smiles, her face lighting up in a way she didn’t think was possible for her.

“Does this mean -”

“No, my lips were just cold.”

Stiles looks horrified and it makes her burst out laughing.

“Yes, you moron.”

“Oh thank God, I was about to start crying.”

She gives him a bemused look. “Were you really?”

Stiles just pulls her closer to him in response, hugging her to him, still as gently as possible.

"Mmmm, you smell like me."

"Well, I _am_ wearing your hoodie..."

"No, your hair smells like my shampoo."

"How horrifying, what does it normally smell like?"

"Lavender and vanilla."

"That's very specific and strangely accurate, you're a creep."

Stiles laughs heartily and it's like music to her ears.

Lydia whispers, “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.” When she says it, she knows it’s true. She thought she loved Jackson, but once she realized how toxic her relationship with him was, she knew that there was no way that that was real love. The way she feels about Stiles scares her to death, which is why she’s tried to suppress it for so long. She knows her and Stiles would be **_it_ ** for each other, that loving him would be all-consuming and therefore, dangerous. That’s why she always chose safer options like Aiden and Parrish, options where there was no real threat of falling so deeply in that losing either of them would destroy her heart and soul.

Stiles sucks in a breath. “Really?”  

“Yes.” He smiles, his eyes lighting up in a way that makes her want to drown in them.

"Well, it's nothing next to my very long speech, but I'll take it."

She smacks his arm and he kisses the top of her head.

Stiles lays down on the bed and pulls her down with him and she instantly snuggles up to him.

He sighs as he wraps his arm around her. “I can’t believe I almost lost you again. If you stayed there any longer-” 

Lydia carresses his face. "Shhh, Stiles, I'm fine."

He looks down at her, his eyes filled with so much love and sadness. "You don't understand - When you were in Eichen, I used to have nightmares about you being tortured to death... I would be standing there, helpless, while you screamed. T-the the screaming was the worst part, I would hear it in my head throughout the day and I would have to count my fingers to make sure I wasn't still asleep."

Lydia feels a few tears escaping from her eyes. She's so overwhelmed by how much Stiles cares about her, how worried he was about her, and she feels it filling her heart with warmth. "That's why you didn't sleep much," she says softly. 

Stiles nods as he wipes her tears. "I didn't mean to make you cry! I just wanted you to know - I need you to know -"

"I know, Stiles, I promise I do."

He smiles at her as he plants soft kisses all over her face. Lydia giggles, actually _giggles,_ and the sound of it lights up Stiles' face.

They lay there in silence for a while, her hand still on his face, tracing the moles like she was doing this morning. 

Suddenly, Lydia's thoughts take a dark turn and she says, “I’m just worried about what comes next. Theo, the Dread Doctors, and possibly another threat, I’m scared for all of us, Stiles.”

Stiles kisses the palm of her hand before he takes it and lays it on his heart. “We’ll get through it, Lyds. Together.”

His hand flies to his mouth when he realizes what he did. “Shit, shit, shit. I’m so sorry, Lydia, I know you don’t like me calling you that anymore-”

Lydia pats his cheek reassuringly. “It’s okay, Stiles, it doesn’t upset me anymore. It’s your nickname for me, it’s special. I don’t want to hate it, I won’t let the experience that I associate it with now defile its meaning. You’re the real Stiles, you should be able to call me whatever you want without me cringing and thinking you're a hallucination.”

“I’m glad to hear that, I missed calling you ‘Lyds.’ But if it ever makes you uncomfortable again, please let me know."

Lydia smiles at his attempt to ensure that he's not triggering her in any way.

Stiles yawns and mumbles, "Now sleep, it’s been a long day.”

Almost as soon as he says it, his breathing evens out and he falls asleep, an adorable smile etched into his face.

Lydia smiles at the realization that she hasn’t felt any pain since her shower this morning. Stiles’ presence is a healing mechanism within itself. She thinks of their kiss; soft and gentle, without the lust that she’s used to with her previous flings. It was short, but had more emotion in it than she’s ever felt in a kiss before, enough to consume her forever. That’s her last thought before she drifts off into yet another, nightmareless sleep.

Once again, Lydia wakes up first. She lays there for a while, wondering what lies ahead, what they’ll face, if they’ll lose more people they care about. She thinks about all the horrible things she had to endure in Eichen, wondering if she’ll ever be able to take pills without feeling nauseous, if she’ll ever not cringe at the sight of a drill, if she’ll ever be able to walk into that hell hole again without wanting to run the other way. She wonders if she’ll ever truly recover, if these “amplified” powers of hers will do more harm than good. She wonders how she’s going to confront her mother, if she’ll forgive her quickly for her ignorance or hold a grudge. She wonders if Stiles and Scott will ever be the same again, if that’s even possible. She wonders if Liam and Hayden will be able to be together, if they’ll be able to protect Mason sufficiently. She wonders if they’ll all make it to graduation, if they’ll follow Stiles’ plan to keep the pack close together.

Her head starts to hurt from all the worrying, so she shakes herself out of her thoughts and looks at Stiles. She knows that it’s impossible to feel perfectly safe in a place that is literally a beacon for the supernatural, but laying there, with Stiles’ face in her hair and his arm wrapped protectively around her, she’s never felt safer.

Lydia whispers, “Thank you, Stiles,” softly in his ear. She knows he can’t hear her, but she felt like she had to say it. She’s overwhelmed by so much emotion for him in that moment that she feels like she could combust.

She’s surprised when he pulls her closer to him, whether deliberately or unconsciously, she doesn’t know.

She sees his lips twitch, evolving into a radiant smile that lights up his face. He hasn’t even opened his eyes and he’s making her heart race. _What an insufferable asshole._

He looks down at her with a bemused expression mixed with warmth. “What exactly are you thanking me for at this time of day?”

Lydia leans down to kiss him and simply says, “For being you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did you think? I'm really glad I was able to finish writing this in time for the 5B premiere on Tuesday. It's true, my eyes and head both hurt from writing so much today, but it was so worth it! I've really enjoyed writing this and if you've followed it until the end, thank you soo much. This was my first attempt at writing a multi-chapter story and I really hope it lived up to your expectations. Those of you who have commented and provided your feedback are the reason why I pushed myself to keep writing whenever I lost motivation or felt like I hated the whole thing and wanted to delete it. I got to a point where I didn't think I would finish it, but even having one person leaving one comment was enough to keep me going. Stiles and Lydia are so close to my heart, so I truly hope I've done them justice throughout this story. Thank you so so much for taking the time to read! #Stydiaforever
> 
> P.S. I wasn't sure if Donovan was brought back by Theo, and since that could be a real game changer for the plot of the show, I decided not to make any speculation. 
> 
> P.S.S. I realize that I pretty much ignored Parrish's existence, but whenever I tried to incorporate him in the story, it just didn't work. So I apologize to any Parrish fans! He just would have complicated the story and been a hindrance that I'm not equipped to efficiently tackle. (I'll leave that to the really good fanfiction authors)
> 
> Please let me know what you think in the comments below!
> 
> If you're on Tumblr, feel free to follow my blog blossomingintheshadows.tumblr.com! I'm always down to talk about Stydia!


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